Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza is still acclimating to both his new home and the Raiders offense, and he’s keeping his head on straight as he goes through the process, according to Sam Warren of The Athletic.
Mendoza is more than a little intense, and according to Warren, he can “come off as hokey, like someone playing a character (“Underdog QB”) in a feel-good movie.” But his fear of failure is real, as he indicated to his latest comments to Warren.
“The system that got me here, it’s a grinder system,” Mendoza said about his transition from Indiana to the Raiders. “It’s a system where I know I put a lot into it, and best-case (scenario), boom, it’s letting me have success already. And let’s say worst-worst-worst-case scenario, it doesn’t go my way, or it doesn’t go the team’s way. Then I can rest my head at night knowing I did everything I possibly (could). … I best served my teammates, I prepared, and I didn’t let them down.”
Some of his quotes come off as eye-rollers, but Mendoza has actually experienced failure at the bottom of the ladder before. He was once a third-string QB at Cal entering the team’s fifth game against an Arizona Sun Devils team that would finish 3-9, and he “questioned everything.”
“I was like, man, I don’t think I can play at this level,” Mendoza recalled. “I’m looking from the sideline, I’m like, ‘Man … there’s nothing open or available … these people are too fast.’”
But Mendoza’s superpower is the combination of his work ethic and being a fast learner, and he used that when he experienced the culture shock of being exposed to the NFL environment.
“Rookie year, it really gets slammed up on you,” he said. “Like, ‘Boom, here’s your playbook, and here we go.’ Especially seeing Kirk Cousins in the room, who knows a lot. It’s like, ‘Wow, I thought I knew a lot. Holy shuck! I’m how far behind? I’ve got to study this to feel confident in my preparation and in myself.’”
The “holy shuck” part of that is definitely an eye-roller and then some, but Mendoza added that there have been moments on the practice field when he feels completely overwhelmed.
He sounds like a character from a self-help book when he says he relied on the “power of optimism” to find a sense of self-belonging, and he’s learned to anticipate those moments and what comes after them when he applies himself.
“There are moments like that where it’s like, ‘Cool, we can do this,’” he said. “I’m looking forward to more of those moments. Maybe I might get a little excited at first ’cause I really, really want this, but then I calm down, see the field and (think), ‘OK, I got this.’”