The Las Vegas Raiders started the week after their third straight loss with a question about their quarterbacks. Klint Kubiak was asked on Wednesday whether he has considered using rookie Fernando Mendoza in short-yardage situations because of what he can do as a runner. The reporter made clear he was not suggesting a quarterback controversy, and Kubiak did not brush the idea aside. “Yeah, you know, that’s a great point,” the head coach said. “I think there’s something to coming off the field cold on the most important down of the drive. This is probably maybe why that doesn’t happen more, but I know it’s definitely a valid point.”
Kirk Cousins remains the starter. Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick, has played one series this season, late in the loss at New England. The Raiders are 3-3 after a 3-0 start and host the 2-4 Los Angeles Rams at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, October 25, at 1:25 p.m. PT (4:25 p.m. ET, 23:25 Cairo).
Hemingway, Thornton and an open offensive line
Kubiak opened by saying defensive tackle Tonka Hemingway is still in the concussion protocol. Hemingway was hurt in Week 5 and missed the 33-30 loss to Buffalo.
Receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. is in the last week of his 21-day practice window on injured reserve. Asked what he expects from him, Kubiak said: “He’s going out there to practice to show us that he’s ready. He’s been building up and had a good first week, had a good second week. He’s got his legs underneath him and he’s got to go show us something.” Asked if there is a chance he is activated, Kubiak said: “Yes.”
Caleb Rogers replaced Jackson Powers-Johnson in the lineup against Buffalo, and the jobs on the line are still open. “We’re going to keep them competing,” Kubiak said. Asked how Powers-Johnson has handled it, he said: “Obviously guys are disappointed, but you keep competing, you’re going to get a chance again, and make sure you’re ready when you are.” Later he praised the locker room for its attitude, “whether it’s JPJ’s attitude when Caleb started or Mike needing to grow,” and added: “You got a team of workers, not finger-pointers.”
Third quarters and closing games
The Raiders opened the second half against Buffalo with three straight incompletions, and Kubiak said slow third quarters are a problem the staff has to fix. “I think it’s a lot of energy too,” he said. “As a coaching staff, we got to make sure our guys have more energy come out of that second half. Starting the game is really important, and starting the game in the third quarter.” He said the team has a plan for it in practice. His list of “bite-size” goals for the week was short: “Third quarter. Breaking tackles. Red zone finishing.”
On closing games, he said keeping it close is not good enough. “If you’re just hoping to keep it close in the fourth quarter, that’s not a winning mindset,” Kubiak said. “Special teams gives you good field position, you got to go score on that drive. Defense gets a turnover, you got to go score on that drive. If there’s a sudden change defensively, then we got to get a stop.” Asked about the biggest areas of growth from Week 1 to Week 7, he kept it to one: “Winning. We got to win, sustain winning.”
He said rookie running back Mike Washington Jr. has earned more snaps and gave a lot of the credit to John Spytek, the general manager, for the rookie class. “That’s a big part of being successful in the NFL, getting your young guys to play early,” Kubiak said. On Mendoza’s work behind the scenes, he said: “I’m very, very pleased with where he’s at. He’s doing more than asked, and that’s just his character. It’s as simple as me walking down the hall here to go get in the steam room when everybody’s gone, and he’s out here on the field by himself.”
Kubiak called the Rams’ offense, which uses a lot of three-tight-end sets, “probably the best offense in the NFL, very well coached.” He also said he talks to his father, former Broncos and Texans head coach Gary Kubiak, “every day,” and is grateful for “his tough love more than anything, because he’ll tell me the truth even when I don’t want to hear it.” Asked whether he stops calling his brother Klay, the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, when their teams play, he said: “That gets unique, but we’re focused on the Rams.”
Cousins: “Restored my faith in Gen Z”
Cousins, in his 15th season, said the young players in the quarterback room and around the building have changed his view of their generation. “I joke with them that you guys have restored my faith in Gen Z with the way you conduct yourselves: your habits, your coachability, your work ethic, football matters to you,” he said. “It’s easy to say when you’re 3-0. You lose three in a row, I continue to see the same quality guys and habits and desire to come to work.”
He said the learning goes both ways. “When I first met him, I said, hey, let’s talk about back shoulders. You’re one of the best out there I’ve seen on tape throwing back shoulders. I don’t think I’ve done as good a job of it as I could have over my career. Teach me,” Cousins said of Mendoza. He also described how Aidan O’Connell helped after Cousins missed Brock Bowers on a third down against Kansas City. “The next week Aidan pulled up clips of him throwing the same exact route to Brock, and we watched them to see what that needs to look like,” he said. “The next week against the Patriots, using that clip as help, we were able to hit it.”
On Mendoza’s progress, Cousins said: “He’s making plays, learning every day and just refining, as we’re all doing. I’m in year 15, still trying to refine. He played well against New England, and he’ll be ready if or when his number is called.”
Tre Tucker and the “launch button”
Tre Tucker caught both of Cousins’ touchdown passes against Buffalo, the second from 44 yards. Cousins put him in a small group of the fastest players he has thrown to. “Over my career, there have been a couple guys where it feels like I’m back in high school, where they’re just different. It was Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin,” he said. Among receivers he named Brandon Banks, DeSean Jackson and Aldrick Robinson, his teammates in Washington, as players for whom “I can just hit the launch button and don’t really have to worry about overthrowing them. And I put Tre in that category.” Kubiak called Tucker the “best-conditioned athlete I’ve ever been around.”
Cousins also praised tight end Michael Mayer, who had a career-high 95 receiving yards on Sunday. “He’s got great hands and he’s accountable and you can depend on him, and I think there’s a reason our organization extended him,” he said, adding that Mayer was the offense’s top award winner at the end of OTAs.
“It really needed to be a check-down”
Cousins took the blame for the drive before the Raiders’ last touchdown on Sunday. “Maybe in moments you were too aggressive and should have checked it down,” he said. “I think that’s what happened on the second-to-last drive, where we had three straight incompletions. It really needed to be a check-down deal.” He said the shots only count if they land: “If it’s incomplete, you’re back to second-and-long or third-and-long, and you don’t want that.”
He said he looks at each game as about “90% good,” and the goal is to cut the rest. “It’s not the 90% that I get worried about. It’s the 10% where you say that’s not up to the standard of what it takes to win a championship,” he said. “So how do we get that 10% to shrink to 3%, to 2%?”
Asked about the Rams, who have lost two straight, Cousins said: “I know the Rams are 2-4, but when you watch the tape and when you see the statistics behind the record, you see a really, really good football team. We’ve got to be at our best.”
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