Expectations are high – they should be for a No. 1 pick – but Spytek and Kubiak have put together an offseason that should protect their investment.<\/p>\n
Signing center Tyler Linderbaum, receivers Jalen Nailor and Dareke Young, fullback Connor Heyward and guard Spencer Burford in free agency added volume to the offense.<\/p>\n
Inking veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins as a mentor\/insurance policy provided cushion.<\/p>\n
So what, exactly, should Raider Nation expect from their newest, shiniest acquisition? After all, the last No. 1 pick QB to redshirt his rookie NFL season was Carson Palmer in 2003 with the Bengals.<\/p>\n
“They should expect the same guy that we’ve seen along the way the whole time. He’s a hard-working, driven, extremely smart young man,” Spytek said. “He’s been a great teammate – I think we’ve all seen that – that embraces his teammates. He tries to highlight his teammates. He’s extremely tough, he’s highly competitive and he’s a guy that loves football. And he doesn’t just love bits and pieces of it; I think he loves the entirety of it. And he proved that to us over the course of the last three or four months.”<\/p>\n
See, the Raiders have been keeping tabs, while staying true to their process throughout.<\/p>\n
“He’s going to be willing to give his best to Raider Nation,” Spytek added. “He’s going to compete his tail off with Kirk and with Aidan [O’Connell]. And as we said, this is a meritocracy. This is the NFL. The best guy will play.<\/p>\n
“How fast he gets up to speed and starts pushing those guys, we’ll see. That will be a lot up to Fernando, too. But we expect him to come in ready to roll. That’s the kind of person he is.”<\/p>\n
You could say the same of Spytek. Because as rank-and-file Raiders employees congratulated him on Mendoza, Spytek, in turn, offered his own congratulations to said employees.<\/p>\n
“This was not a coronation,” Spytek said. “But every step of the way, he kept checking boxes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expectations are high – they should be for a No. 1 pick – but Spytek and Kubiak have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2659,314,12299,12167,8013,12300,8,1929,1930,9,2658,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-20332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-2026-draft","9":"tag-draft","10":"tag-draft-card","11":"tag-draft-tracker-card","12":"tag-fernando-mendoza","13":"tag-fernando-mendoza-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-home-centerpiece","16":"tag-home-latest-stories","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-news-draft","19":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116460627073610308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}