Raiders draft Fernando Mendoza No. 1 in 2026 NFL Draft

There is a new chapter in Fernando Mendoza’s fairy tale. The child who I only had one scholarship offer is now the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, headed to the Las Vegas Raiders.

The latest crowning achievement comes after a 16-0 season at Indiana, complete with a Heisman Trophy and a College Football Playoff national championship.

It’s the holy trinity for an NFL Draft prospect. He is the fourth player to win a Heisman, a national title and go No. 1 overall in the common draft era (since 1967), joining Cam Newton, Jameis Winston and Joe Burrow.

Those sky-high expectations could be a perfect match for Mendoza, who joins a franchise in need of a savior. “He [has] be the last time we ever [the top draft choice]” Raiders general manager John Spytek said during last month’s owners meetings.

Fernando Mendoza

IND • QB • #15

Cerebral pocket passers can still win in the NFL – especially when they have the kind of performance in high-pressure situations that Mendoza possesses.

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It won’t be easy. The Raiders may present themselves as the worst franchise in the NFL this century. They haven’t won a single playoff game in 23 years and have only recorded two winning seasons in that span. If you’re under 40, you probably don’t know anything about the Raiders’ glory days of John Madden, Tom Flores, Ken Stabler, Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and company.

But you know the Tuck Rule game all too well, Rich Gannon’s five-interception performance – including two pick-sixes – in the Super Bowl, Jon Gruden’s two infamous exits and countless draft mistakes.

Ultimately, they must finally succeed, and it must start with this choice.

2026 NFL Draft Essentials

Raiders draft mistakes in the 2000s

Most of the Raiders’ struggles this century can be traced back to the NFL Draft, which has become a black hole for a once-proud franchise.

Statistically, this is the worst draft team in the NFL since 2000. Pro Football Reference has a metric called ballpark value. Think of it as the football version of WAR. Using this metric, no team derived less value from their draft picks than the Las Vegas Raiders.

It’s been a comedy of errors, starting with drafting kicker Sebastian Janikowski (yes, a kicker!) in the first round in 2000. They are still the only franchise to select a kicker in the first round in the common draft era (since 1967). If that wasn’t enough, they also drafted a punter (Shane Lechler) in the fifth round that year. They remain the only team in the modern era to take both the No. 1 kicker and No. 1 punter off the board in the same draft.

One way or another, this is just the beginning. Look away, Raiders fans. From 2002 to 2007, they made first round picks like Napoleon Harris, Robert Gallery, Fabian Washington and JaMarcus Russell. The punchline: The four players drafted immediately after these picks – Ed Reed, Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Rodgers and Calvin Johnson. Talk about a bad beat four times.

These four will all have a Hall of Fame bust one day (three already do), and all the Raiders have to show for their picks is the start of a legendary list of draft busts. Let’s not forget Darrius Heyward-Bey, DJ Hayden, Karl Joseph, Rolando McClain, Gareon Conley, Johnathan Abram, Clelin Ferrell, Damon Arnette, Alex Leatherwood, Henry Ruggs III and Tyree Wilson.

No whiff was worse than JaMarcus Russell, of course — the Raiders’ last No. 1 pick in 2007 — who is considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. Incredibly, he has the same number of regular season wins in his career that Tom Brady (199th pick in 2000) has won the Super Bowl (seven). Go figure: a player with all the talent in the world, renowned for his ability to throw 60-70 yards from his knees (Russell), could become an all-time failure, while someone considered a nobody became the winningest player of all time (Brady).

Unfortunately for the Raiders, they had enough brushes with unrealized potential to paint a picture. Al Davis’ obsession with speed took a dark turn in the 2000s that still haunts the franchise. During his final 10 years as owner of the Raiders (2001-11), Davis drafted 14 players (many of whom were first-round selections) who ran a 4.35 or better 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. That’s 10 more than any other team over this period. None of the 14 made the Pro Bowl with the Raiders.

The nightmare list: Kenyon Rambo, Phillip Buchanon, Justin Fargas, Carlos Francis, Fabian Washington, Stanford Routt, Michael Huff, Tyvon Branch, Darren McFadden, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Louis Murphy, Jacoby Ford, DeMarcus Van Dyke and Taiwan Jones.

Davis chose the player with the best 40 times in each of his last three selections (2009-11): Heyward-Bey, Ford and Van Dyke. It was a strategy that felt more like what you would do in franchise mode in Madden than what actually happens in real life.

Perhaps Davis’ worst bad move in the draft came in 2010, when he traded the pick the Patriots used to draft Rob Gronkowski — another reason Brady needs to pay this franchise back.

However, the blame for the Raiders’ draft woes doesn’t rest on one person. They have had 14 different head coaches during the 23-year playoff drought, the most in the NFL. They’ve had seven different general managers since Davis died in 2011. Nobody gets it.

The Jon Gruden-Mike Mayock duo combined for six first-round picks from 2019-21: Johnathan Abram, Josh Jacobs, Clelin Ferrell, Damon Arnette, Henry Ruggs III and Alex Leatherwood. It was a total disaster outside of Jacobs, as Ferrell, Arnette and Leatherwood were widely considered stretches. The duo had a chance to put their stamp on the team with three starters in 2019, but none of them (Ferrell, Jacobs, Abram) earned a second contract with the team.

The Raiders may have grabbed Maxx Crosby in the fourth round that year, but their draft was so poor that they had to trade away three of their top draft picks this century (Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper, and Crosby – although that trade was ultimately voided) as part of the rebuilding efforts.

The jury is still out on last year’s first-round pick, Ashton Jeanty, but it’s never an ideal start when you finish last in the NFL in rushing after breaking a record with your first pick.

Just one choice can erase all the bad history

As horrible as the Raiders’ draft history has been this century, it could only take one selection to change everything.

Five quarterbacks in NFL history have won a Super Bowl for the team that drafted them first overall: Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Troy Aikman, John Elway and Terry Bradshaw.

If Mendoza ultimately joins this company, the whole bad draft story becomes a beacon of hope that led to the right guy.

And why not Mendoza? He will face the pressure of being the No. 1 pick, but no bad history should matter. He wasn’t even alive the last time the Raiders won a playoff game.

“He’s a winner, he’s accurate, he’s big, smart,” Raiders coach Klint Kubiak said last month at NFL owners’ meetings.

He has drawn comparisons to Matt Ryan thanks to his high football IQ, physical characteristics, accuracy and clutch ability. He will play in a proven system that has worked with quarterbacks sharing similar traits, including Kirk Cousins, Brock Purdy and Sam Darnold. He will also have the GOAT in his corner.

Mendoza, born in Boston, grew up idolizing Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion and minority owner of the Raiders. He spoke candidly about meeting Brady during the preliminary process.

“He gave me the message that he was going to push me, and that he wasn’t going to be all love — and that if the Raiders drafted me, he would be a mentor and want to invest in any Raiders QB.”

Indeed, there’s a lot to like about Mendoza, from his fit with Las Vegas to his championship pedigree and his humble beginnings (he was the 134th-ranked QB prospect in the 2022 recruiting class, according to 247Sports). Not to mention the competitive drive it took to cross the goal line on this play.

If it doesn’t live up to the hype, it won’t be for lack of effort. “If there were 25 hours in a day, he would spend all 25 hours preparing,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said last season.

To his credit, Mendoza has already watched all of Kirk Cousins’ film from his time in Minnesota, where he played under Kubiak. This work dates back years to when Mendoza was studying Cousins ​​and Sam Darnold in college after drawing comparisons to both.

He also worked with Brian Griese to play under center, which will be a key transition as he enters the NFL. Indiana operated with a shotgun 97% of the time last season, while Kubiak used it much less (47%) as the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator in 2025.

He checks a lot of boxes, but Raiders owner Mark Davis offered a sobering reminder last month. “Having the first pick in the draft is exciting because we kind of control the draft – we can make the decision on who we’re going to pick. But we’ve been in this position before, and it hasn’t worked. So there’s no silver bullet, but it’s a great opportunity to get a great player, whoever they decide to pick.”

On that note, a lot of people were praising JaMarcus Russell in 2007 when the Raiders drafted him. They were probably making a similar argument for his success with the franchise.

This is the beauty and tragedy of the project. One choice can become a failure in a series of nightmares, while another can make you forget everything else.

Which category will Mendoza fall into? You feel like you’re the right player and the right person at the right time, but no one really knows. This is the NFL Draft – a complete crapshoot, a gamble the Raiders are praying will pay off, so it all becomes history.

They must finally succeed and build a championship team around Mendoza. If they do, it will be another chapter in his fairy tale – this time with a legendary franchise.