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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 the tight end chip blocking before releasing as the checkdown option, the defense has a three-on-two advantage on the playside of the offense’s call. This time, Mendoza is a lot faster at recognizing that nothing is open and moving on in the progression.
However, the backside routes are also covered since the boundary corner is playing with off coverage to stay on top of the post route from the single receiver, and the safety is already coming downhill to pick up the running back out of the backfield. Instead of looking for the big play and scrambling, this time, Mendoza just finds his checkdown for an easy completion.
Since the tight end was blocking initially, he has a delayed release, and that gets the linebacker who dropped in coverage to drift away from the offensive line to cover the middle of the field. That puts the backer out of position to pick up the tight end, leading to some YAC and a broken tackle for the touchdown.
So the throw is nothing to speak of, but this is impressive quarterbacking to take what the defense is giving up and let the pass-catcher do the dirty work to get in the end zone.
This is a great example of the Raiders’ new quarterback finding the middle ground between the two previous plays.
It’s another third and medium situation on the plus side of the 50-yard-line. However, with the line of scrimmage being at the 43-yard-line instead of the 36, as it was in the first clip above, taking a sack is okay here since the offense isn’t in field goal range yet. In fact, a loss of yards isn’t such a bad result because it would give the punter more room to pin the other team deep in their territory.
In other words, this is a situation where it makes sense to extend the play as long as possible if nothing is open. That’s exactly what Mendoza does, as Wisconsin has every route past the first down marker covered.
Maybe he can hit Becker on the post at the bottom of the screen since the two safeties are in quarters and occupied by the two receivers on the other side of the formation. But the corner has decent coverage on Becker, staying in the wideout’s hip and in a position to make a play on the ball. So, it’s understandable why the quarterback turned that down.
Now, both the checkdowns are open with the tight end and running back working the flats. However, the defense has a linebacker to account for each of them, and both backers are in good spots to rally and make the tackle short of the sticks. On top of that, the quarterback is running out of time because both defensive tackles win their matchups and get pressure to collapse the pocket.
That means it’s time for Mendoza to make a play. He delivers by evading the sack in the pocket and scrambling, which gets the third linebacker or middle hook defender to come downhill. Meanwhile, Williams (the outside receiver at the top of the screen) recognizes the scramble drill and works back toward the quarterback or where the linebacker was.
As a result, Mendoza has an open target to throw to and hits his man to move the chains and keep the drive alive. That’s good situational football and a good play out of structure to create a scoring opportunity.
This time, we’ll get a look at one of the “big-time throws” mentioned above, in addition to a good read.
Indiana comes out in a three-by-one formation with the ball on the hashmark, and Wisconsin responds by having its field safety (bottom of the screen) cheat to the three receiver side instead of staying in the middle of the field. Meanwhile, the boundary safety (top of the screen) lines up a few yards closer to the line of scrimmage than the field safety to serve as the “rat in the hole” or low hole defender in Cover 1.
That’s significant because Mendoza is looking to hit Becker on a skinny post. But he needs to confirm the coverage first.
Watch the quarterback’s eyes post-snap. Initially, he checks to see if Becker wins off the line of scrimmage, which the receiver does. Then, he finds the boundary safety to confirm the boundary safety is staying low or isn’t working for depth before taking one last peek at the middle of the field to ensure the field safety is still on the other side of the field or not in a position to help against the skinny post route.
Once Mendoza confirms all of that information, he lets it rip and drops the ball in the bucket, hitting Becker in-stride while beating the safety and giving Becker enough time to secure the catch before contact. A great read and throw leads to an explosive play that flips the field.
These last two clips don’t fit with the overall theme of Mendoza going through progressions. But he did have a couple of plays—or at least similar concepts—that he’ll likely be asked to execute in Klint Kubiak’s offense, making them worth diving into.
The Hoosiers are on the goal line and execute a standard play-action pass with a two-man route: the tight end on a corner and the fullback working into the flat. The read is pretty simple since the SAM linebacker steps downhill on the run fake and is out of position to cover the corner route, while the edge defender “hugs up” the flat route to take that away.
However, the throw is difficult because the tight end and fullback have to get into their routes and can’t help in pass-protection, leaving the running back one-on-one with the defensive end, who isn’t blocked on the line of scrimmage and gets a head of steam before contact. That mismatch goes exactly how one would expect it to, forcing Mendoza to throw off his backfoot, off-balance and around/over the pass-rusher.
In an offense that features a lot of play-action and bootlegs, the quarterback is going to have to deal with free rushers often. So, it’s nice to know that the No. 1 pick has plays like this in his bag for Kubiak to work with. And that’s without mentioning the fact that this play started from under center!
This time, the play call includes a bootleg off play action for another Kubiak-esque design.
The read is pretty simple with the receiver on the wide side of the field running a deep out and the offset tight end (the one on the short side of the field) working across the formation and into the opposite flats serving as the two primary reads in the progression. Technically, the other receiver is an option too, but that’s more of an emergency situation as he starts the play involved in the run fake by bluffing a block on the corner.
Mendoza could just hit the tight end since the SAM linebacker is late to recognize the route and get into the flat. Also, the corner starts the play with outside leverage on the receiver (Williams), which should take away the out route. However, notice how at the 40-yard-line Williams stems his route outside and attacks the corner’s blind spot, forcing the corner to open his hips toward the sideline.
That’s a great route by the wideout to win outside despite the defender having outside leverage initially, and Mendoza recognizes that to maximize the offense’s gain on this play, rather than just hitting the tight end in the flat. Additionally, he shows off some arm strength by delivering a nice ball that’s 15 yards past the line of scrimmage and from the middle of the field to the sideline, all without having his feet set.
Kubiak had to be licking his chops seeing a play and throw like this, as it fits perfectly with his play-action- and bootleg-heavy offense.
Up next is Indiana’s regular-season finale against in-state rival Purdue, which was also the worst performance of Mendoza’s season.
