The Las Vegas Raiders have shown positive signs in their rebuild in Klint Kubiak's first season as head coach, and now it's time to turn the keys over to their young quarterback. No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza will make his first career NFL start on Sunday after the Raiders traded Kirk Cousins back to the Minnesota Vikings before Tuesday's trade deadline.
Mendoza has reportedly been tearing it up in practice for the Raiders, and there is optimism that he can help the 4-5 Las Vegas squad make a late push for the playoffs in the highly-competitive AFC. But things won't be easy for him in his first start.
The Raiders are taking on the Seattle Seahawks in Week 10. Mike Macdonald's group still has arguably the best defense in the NFL, even if some offensive struggles have taken them down a peg from the Super Bowl-winning squad they had in 2025. Macdonald is a genius on the defensive side of the ball, and he is a professional at making things difficult on young, inexperienced quarterbacks.
Of course, Kubiak knows Macdonald and this Seahawks defense all too well. He was the offensive coordinator in Seattle for that Super Bowl run a year ago, and now he will try to out-scheme his old team in this pivotal Week 10 clash.
Mendoza has his work cut out for him in his first start, but there are some areas that he can attack. How does this Raiders offense match up with one of the NFL's best units?
Vegas needs to revive the running game
The Las Vegas running game has been very disappointing this season, in large part due to Ashton Jeanty being pretty banged up. The former top-10 pick suffered an ankle injury during training camp and has looked hurt for most of the year, playing without his usual burst and explosiveness. Mike Washington Jr. has done a good job carrying some of the load alongside Jenaty, but the overall numbers still aren't pretty.
The Raiders recently passed the Packers and their inept running game for last place in the league in yards per rush at 2.9. Their rushing success rate, just 32.9%, ranks 31st in the league only ahead of Green Bay. Their EPA per rush, just -0.23, is the third-worst mark in the NFL. The Raiders are not helping themselves on the ground, which is an integral part of what Kubiak wants to do offensively.
Things won't be getting any easier this week against a Seahawks team that is still very hard to run the ball against. Byron Murphy II and Leonard Williams form one of the best duos on the interior of the defensive line in the league, and it's hard to see the Raiders offensive line being able to move them around. Williams did miss Seattle's Week 9 win over the Cardinals with a stinger and didn't practice on Wednesday, so his status remains to be seen.
Despite the injury to Williams and some others during the first half of the season, the Seahawks still rank fourth in stuff rate and eighth in EPA per rush allowed this season. The Bears had some success running the ball against this Seattle front seven, but the Seahawks have completely stifled many of the bad running games that they have played this season. The Raiders are statistically the worst of the bunch.
Where can Mendoza attack in the passing game?
The Raiders have had a solid passing offense so far this season, but of course the numbers are essentially moot with a rookie quarterback stepping in for a rock-solid veteran like Kirk Cousins. But Kubiak has shown the ability to run the passing game through one superstar player, Brock Bowers, just like he did with Jaxon Smith-Njigba a year ago.
That helps mitigate one of the Raiders' biggest weaknesses, which is the pass-catching talent outside of Bowers. Tre Tucker and Jalen Nailor are quality players ,and Michael Mayer has been a very solid tight end option this season, but there really isn't much that's going to scare defenses outside of Bowers.
Of course, we can only go off of what Mendoza did in college, but it's good news for Bowers (and his fantasy football owners) that the reigning Heisman Trophy winner was always willing to give his guys chances in one-on-one situations during his time at Indiana. Whenever Bowers has a favorable matchup on Sunday and moving forward, expect Mendoza to find him. He is excellent at throwing isolation routes on the outside, such as curls, backshoulder fades, and slants, all things that Kubiak can try to set Bowers up with on Sunday.
The tricky part playing against this Seahawks defense is finding space to attack. Mike Macdonald's defense specializes in forcing you to check the ball down and then rallying and tackling before you can get any yards after the catch. The Seahawks are allowing a league-best 4.7 yards per pass play this season, and they are doing that despite 3.8 yards of target separation, the third-highest in the league per Next Gen Stats. Seattle also ranks top six in yards after catch over expected allowed, so their plan works when teams succumb to checking the ball down.
The Raiders could fall into a similar trap given their lack of elite playmakers with the ball in their hands outside of Bowers, so Mendoza needs to try to push the envelope and attack further down the field. If you can start to push the ball down the field against the Seahawks, both in the intermediate and deep areas of the field, there are places to attack. Bears QB Caleb Williams is the only QB to post a positive EPA per dropback against Seattle this season, and he posted the highest air yards per attempt (9.5) and deep pass rate (17.6%) of any quarterback against the Seahawks this season. It's hard to expect Mendoza to be a Williams-level passer right away, but that's what it takes to make inroads against this defense.
Of course, that doesn't mean it's easy to do. The Seahawks defense ranks third in the NFL in EPA per pass allowed against both intermediate and deep passes. No team gives up fewer yards per game to intermediate throws than Seattle does. While the space is there to attack, the Seahawks condense the space and make the windows to throw into very tight.
This will be very difficult for the Raiders to do without being able to run the ball, of course, which is an issue that Williams and the Bears didn't have against this Seattle team. The Seahawks will feel confident stopping the run with just their front, which allows the second-level players to get back and clog those intermediate throwing windows even earlier in the down.
Even despite that, Mendoza is going to have to be bold and aggressive pushing the ball downfield if he wants to get a win in his first start. If he doesn't, the Seahawks will suffocate this Raiders offense just like they have done to so many others over the last two seasons.