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Somewhere in Raider Nation, a fan has already done the math.
Beat Seattle on Sunday, get back to .500, steal one somewhere down the line, and how many wins does it usually take to get into the playoffs anyway?
All the Raiders did was change quarterbacks, right? And to the first pick in the entire NFL draft no less.
Away the Silver-and-Black go.
Funny what happens when the new guy hasn’t been intercepted yet, huh?
But go ahead. Do the math. Fernando Mendoza is making his first NFL start Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, and there’s just enough electricity in the air to entertain the possibility that a 4-5 team and a fan base that could use a little joy are about to stumble into something together.
Maybe Mendoza hits Brock Bowers on a third down the Raiders ordinarily give away.
Maybe that buys Maxx Crosby one more series on the sideline, and a slightly fresher Crosby gets a hand on the football late in the fourth quarter. The Raiders beat the defending Super Bowl champions, and suddenly everybody who spent the week talking about next year wants to know who the Raiders have to leapfrog in the playoff race.
It could happen. Hell, stranger things have happened to the Raiders.
Jim Plunkett was a former No. 1 pick whose career had gone sideways in two cities before he wound up on the bench in Oakland. Imagine trying to sell anybody in October 1980 on the idea that, come January, that guy would stand on a podium in New Orleans as the MVP of the Super Bowl.
Somebody who was there ought to tell a grandkid that story this week. Especially the part about how ridiculous it would have sounded in October.
Mendoza is entitled to see where his own story goes. So are you.
But then there is the reality of it all.
And that is OK, too.
There is a pretty good chance that sometime Sunday the kid will look right at a receiver, see daylight and discover, about halfway through his throwing motion, precisely why Mike Macdonald was willing to leave that particular patch of grass unattended. At which point somebody who did the playoff math might be inclined to check where the Raiders stand in the draft order and whether they drafted the right quarterback.
Don’t be that guy.
Peyton Manning was intercepted 28 times as a rookie. His little brother, Eli, lost his first six starts for the Giants. Jared Goff went an entire rookie season without getting to shake the other quarterback’s hand as the winner. A year later, Goff won the NFC West.
Eli won his division in his second season, too.
John Elway had days as a rookie when Denver figured it had a better chance with Steve DeBerg. Matthew Stafford took his lumps in Detroit. Ask Caleb Williams how much fun it was to get picked first in the draft and spend his first fall in Chicago picking himself up off the grass.
There’s a reason for some of that. Generally speaking, the first pick goes to a team that spent the previous season earning it. That is why Mendoza is in Vegas in the first place. The Raiders were the NFL’s worst team last year.
They have made significant improvements since then, but they still have trouble running the ball. They have even more trouble stopping somebody else from running it.
Trading Kirk Cousins to Minnesota did little to address either issue. Those are fairly important details to keep in mind if Mendoza walks off the field Sunday with 24 points on the board and Seattle has 27.
Point is, there will likely be growing pains and progress that won’t necessarily be measured in wins.
Over the next eight games, pay close attention to what happens on the possession after Mendoza makes a mistake. Does he come back to the receiver he missed? Can he get the Raiders lined up, settle everybody down and make a throw on third-and-6 when the last ball he threw is sitting on the other team’s sideline? There’s a lot to learn about a quarterback on a drive that never makes the highlight shows.
There’s also something to be said for putting the scouting report down once in a while. If Mendoza drops one over Tre Tucker’s shoulder Sunday, feel free to spill a little beer on the guy next to you. If he leads a touchdown drive to win it, call the person who made you a Raiders fan in the first place. Chances are the two of you have sat through enough lousy fourth quarters to have earned a good one.
The Raiders drafted Mendoza with the idea that he’d play meaningful football around here for the next decade. Eight Sundays are a pretty small piece of that bargain. He’s going to cost them a possession he wishes he could get back. He might also win them a game they had no business winning.
Don’t be so busy deciding what either one means for the next 10 years that you miss the fun of watching it happen.
Besides, what if that fan with the schedule spread out on the kitchen table is onto something? What if the kid wins Sunday and gives everybody a perfectly good excuse to do the math again Monday morning?
Maybe, just maybe, there really is some magic in the air.
