Cousins Keeps Raiders Job After Four Losses — Mendoza Must Wait
GOATIFYThe Las Vegas Raiders are 3–4 after starting 3–0, and the most obvious quarterback change is also the one their head coach says he will not make. On Monday, October 26, Klint Kubiak confirmed that Kirk Cousins will start against the New York Jets. No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza remains on the bench, even after four consecutive losses turned an encouraging September into a much more uncomfortable October.
The distinction matters. Cousins has thrown a league-leading 16 touchdown passes and ranks third with 1,877 passing yards. The Raiders nevertheless lost 35–21 to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, turning only one of five red-zone trips into a touchdown and converting just three of 14 third downs. A team can have a productive passer and a malfunctioning offense at the same time. Las Vegas now has to prove it understands the difference.
Kubiak's Monday answer closed the quarterback debate — for one week
The conversation changed in less than 24 hours. After the Rams loss, Kubiak said he would review personnel, scheme and every possible way to improve. Because the Raiders had spent the first seven games keeping the top pick behind a 38-year-old veteran, that open-ended answer naturally raised the possibility of Mendoza's first start.
On Monday, Kubiak drew a much narrower line. Cousins would remain the starter against the Jets, and the coaching staff's job was to improve the offense around him. That is not a promise that the depth chart will never change. It is a statement about the evidence the staff believes it has today: Cousins is producing enough as a passer that a substitution would not automatically solve the larger problem.
The timing also exposes the pressure on Kubiak and general manager John Spytek. They made the deliberate decision to begin 2026 with Cousins while Mendoza learned as the backup. That plan looked easy to defend at 3–0. Four losses later, the same decision must be justified through results rather than patience alone. The head coach cannot simply point to Cousins' touchdowns and ignore the scoreboard; equally, he cannot pretend that putting a rookie behind the same struggling run game would repair everything.
There is a sensible middle position: keep the veteran in place, identify precisely where drives are dying and demand immediate changes. But it is a short-term argument. If the Raiders keep losing in the same ways, every weekly reaffirmation will sound less like stability and more like an increasingly expensive delay.
Sixteen touchdown passes cannot hide one touchdown in five red-zone trips
Cousins' line against Los Angeles was respectable in isolation: 26 completions on 44 attempts, 295 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. But the Raiders were behind 28–6 at halftime. The second-half passing production arrived after the Rams had already dictated the game. Box-score volume can describe what a quarterback did without explaining when those yards mattered.
The most revealing numbers came on the plays that decide possessions. Las Vegas went three-for-14 on third down, a conversion rate of roughly 21 percent, and scored a touchdown on just one of five red-zone visits. The Rams, by contrast, finished five-for-five in the red zone. Those two differences help explain why the scoreboard never truly reflected the Raiders' passing-yard total.
The ground game made the problem worse. Las Vegas managed only 48 rushing yards, while the Rams generated 199. Ashton Jeanty had eight carries for 15 yards; Mike Washington Jr. added 27 on six attempts. Without a credible threat to gain efficient yards on the ground, defenders can anticipate passing situations, and the quarterback is left to manufacture every critical conversion through tighter windows.
There were genuine offensive flashes. Tre Tucker caught five passes for 103 yards, including a 37-yard touchdown, while Jeanty added a 15-yard receiving score. Those plays demonstrate that Cousins can still create explosive moments with his targets. They do not explain away the first-half hole, repeated stalled drives or the inability to finish close to the goal line.
Kubiak's task is therefore more demanding than choosing between two quarterbacks. He must build a repeatable sequence of useful early-down gains, third-down answers and red-zone calls. A rookie might change the style of the offense, but no quarterback can make every drive sustainable if the rest of the operation keeps failing at the same pressure points.
Mendoza is the franchise's future, not an instant cure for its present
Mendoza is not a random backup who became popular because the starter lost four games. Las Vegas selected him first overall in April after he won the Heisman Trophy and led Indiana to the 2025 national championship. The Raiders made a major long-term investment in his ceiling, and that investment inevitably changes how every losing streak is discussed.
But the rookie's professional sample remains tiny. His only regular-season passing work came in relief against New England on October 11, when he completed six of eight passes for 48 yards. That appearance offered a useful glimpse of his composure and ability to move the offense, not a reliable prediction of how he would perform for four quarters against a defense preparing specifically for him.
There are two competing costs. Keeping Mendoza out of the lineup delays live experience and risks leaving a talented prospect watching a season drift away. Starting him before the offense can protect possessions, establish the run or finish drives could place too much of the team's structural burden on a player still learning the league. Neither choice is risk-free.
Cousins has also handled the possibility of a change without publicly challenging the team's right to make it. He has acknowledged that the organization should play whichever quarterback gives it the best chance to win and spoken positively about Mendoza's future. That removes one potential locker-room conflict, but it does not remove the competitive decision facing Kubiak.
The most useful question is not whether Mendoza deserves a ceremonial start because of his draft position. It is what the coaches need to see in practice and in the current offense before they believe he would improve the team's chance of winning. A clear standard would make the development plan credible. Without one, every loss will make the rookie's continued absence feel increasingly arbitrary.
The Jets game will reveal whether this is a plan or another postponement
Las Vegas heads to the Jets with a deceptively simple assignment: demonstrate that the offensive failures against the Rams were correctable. The opponent changes, but the checklist does not. The Raiders need a more competitive first half, enough rushing efficiency to keep defenses honest and a higher share of third-down and red-zone opportunities turned into points.
That begins with how Kubiak uses his available playmakers. Tucker's 103 receiving yards against Los Angeles show that the passing game can stretch a defense. Jeanty's touchdown catch shows that the running back can contribute through the air even when the rushing lanes disappear. Brock Bowers remains another route-running threat whose presence should make the offense less predictable. The challenge is to connect those individual strengths into drives rather than isolated highlights.
There is a defensive component, too. The Rams built a 28–3 advantage before Las Vegas found any sustained response. A quarterback can accelerate a comeback, but an offense forced into obvious passing situations because its defense has already surrendered four touchdowns is playing under conditions no coordinator would choose. The Raiders have to become more complete, not merely more adventurous at quarterback.
A win over New York would not erase the four-game slide, and a loss would not automatically prove Mendoza should start the following week. What matters is whether the process changes. If the Raiders run the ball with purpose, move the chains at a sustainable rate and avoid another early avalanche, Cousins' continued role will have a football rationale. If the same mistakes persist, Kubiak will have to explain why his chosen solution keeps producing the same outcome.
For now, the decision is made. The real audition is not Cousins versus Mendoza in a headline. It is whether the coaching staff can make an offense with a league-leading touchdown passer behave like a winning unit.
Cousins has earned more than a reflexive benching based solely on the standings. Sixteen touchdown passes and nearly 1,900 passing yards are meaningful evidence that he can still move the ball. They are not proof that Las Vegas is functioning well enough to win.
Kubiak's Monday commitment buys the Raiders another week to demonstrate progress. Mendoza's future remains central to the franchise, but the immediate test belongs to the coaches, the offensive line, the running game and the veterans already on the field. If those pieces do not improve, the quarterback question will return — and next time a promise of stability may not be enough.
Shop GOATIFY NFL and American football shirts, hoodies and stickers.
