Fernando Mendoza’s poise and Kirk Cousins’ leadership continue turning heads as Las Vegas Raiders assistant head coach Mike McCoy reveals what’s standing out in training camp.
As the Raiders push through the early weeks of training camp, McCoy is highlighting two things that could shape the team’s season: Mendoza’s ability to shake off mistakes and Cousins’ influence on a young quarterback room.
McCoy, who has helped develop highly drafted quarterbacks before, said the biggest indicator of progress for any young player, not just quarterbacks, is steady daily improvement. He pointed to a recent practice as an example. After throwing an interception, Mendoza came right back and completed his next several passes without missing a beat.
“It didn’t faze him at all, and that’s what you have to have,” McCoy said. “You have to have thick skin and just keep rolling and live for the next play.”
McCoy compared it to a cornerback playing on the edge of the defense, someone who is bound to give up a big play at some point but has to move on immediately.
“Don’t let one play affect the other,” he said.
Asked whether that resilience is a learnable skill, McCoy said it comes with experience.
“He’s been playing quarterback a long time,” McCoy said. “He understands that not every pass is going to be perfect, and you just go to the next one.”
Much of that steadiness, McCoy suggested, traces back to the environment Cousins has helped build in the quarterback room alongside Aidan O’Connell and the coaching staff. McCoy called the group’s dynamic since it first came together this offseason, and after the draft brought in the rookies, a rare one.
“It’s been phenomenal since the first time we met as a group,” McCoy said. “When you get guys like that and they’re all in it together, it’s a special group.”
The curious lineage between the Raiders and Broncos…
McCoy also drew a line from the current coaching staff to his own past with the Kubiak family, noting he worked alongside Gary Kubiak, father of current head coach Klint Kubiak, in Denver in 1995. Offensive line coach Rick Dennison was part of that staff as well, and McCoy said the scheme in Las Vegas carries clear echoes of that Denver system, even as it has evolved over three decades.
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That lineage extends beyond scheme, McCoy said, pointing to Gary Kubiak’s approach with players in Denver as a model his son has carried forward in Las Vegas.
“They coached them extremely hard, but then they also loved them up,” McCoy said. “They know that, ‘Hey, we care about them as people also.'”
With padded practices underway and roster battles heating up, McCoy said the focus for Mendoza and the rest of the offense is simple: improve every day, learn from every rep, whether it’s your mistake or a teammate’s, and let the results take care of themselves.
As the Raiders continue training camp and inch closer to the regular season opener, that steady approach will be put to the test.
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