Published August 27, 2026 11:59 PM
The Raiders’ preseason has ended. Both Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza played in the finale, against the 49ers.
After the game, coach Klint Kubiak still didn’t name a starting quarterback.
The audio was dead for the first couple of questions during Kubiak’s postgame press conference. Apparently, one of them dealt with the QB1 issue. Via Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Kubiak said he’s not ready to name a starter for the Week 1 game at Miami.
In the portion of the press conference for which the sound was on, Kubiak arguably spoke about Mendoza as a player who may not be spending extensive time practicing or playing moving forward.
“He needs another three preseason games,” Kubiak said. “You know, all those rookies do. And now that the season’s starting, you know, the practice reps get smaller, and that’s just life. But, us as coaches, we gotta get them ready to play, keep developing them.”
Later, Kubiak said regarding Mendoza, “We got him plenty of time, and I’m happy where he’s at, but we just got to keep pushing him to be better.”
Regardless, Kubiak hasn’t named a starter. And the first real game is only 17 days away.
