Silver And Black Pride
We’re getting close to the end of the regular season in Silver and Black Pride’s Mendoza Mania series, diving into new Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza’s Week 12 matchup against Wisconsin.
Indiana cruised to a 31-7 victory in this one, thanks to one of the best stat lines the Heisman Trophy winner had during the 2025 campaign, completing 22 of 24 passing attempts (91.7%) for 299 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions.
While Mendoza had a handful of impressive throws against the Badgers, including a pair of “big-time throws” according to Pro Football Focus, how he handled working through his reads/progressions was the biggest theme of the afternoon.
This is the case with a lot of young quarterbacks; Mendoza can get caught big-play hunting and needs to learn how to recognize when to just take what the defense is giving him in the NFL.
It’s third and seven here, and it looks like Wisconsin is running Cover 7 or some variation of pattern matching, which helps take away all of Indiana’s deep routes. The corner at the bottom of the screen is in off coverage and can run with Charlie Becker (No. 80) on the post route; the nickelback is also giving cushion and staying deep against the out and up from E.J. Williams (No. 7), and Omar Cooper Jr. slips on the deep out. Also, the boundary safety (top of the screen) is in a great spot to take away the backside dig from the tight end.
In other words, the defense is taking away any options that are at or past this sticks. So, especially in this area of the field, the quarterback has to be quick to the checkdown and just take what the defense is giving him. To be fair, Mendoza eventually gets to the running back, but it’s too late since the pass-rush is starting to hit home.
He does manage to escape the first sack attempt, but instead of getting rid of the ball after avoiding disaster, he scrambles and ends up taking a sack anyway. Yes, it’s third down so an incompletion or a completion short of the sticks leads to fourth down regardless. However, the offense is on the cusp of field goal range where every yard is significant because negative plays are the difference between having an opportunity to put points on the board and having to punt.
Again, this is a fine line that just about every young quarterback has to learn how to toe. But understanding when it’s okay and not okay to take a sack is something the No. 1 pick can work on.
The good news is that Mendoza does have instances where he does a good job of getting to the check down, with the play above serving as a strong example.
The coverage is pretty similar here, as the Badgers are running a three-deep, three-under fire zone where one of the linebackers blitzes, and the defenders dropping in coverage are pattern matching. With...
