LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Fernando Mendoza did much to impress in his preseason debut. The rookie quarterback played a clean game in the team’s 27-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

Mendoza led the Raiders down the field on his second possession, finishing the drive with his first professional touchdown (albeit in exhibition action), connecting with receiver Jack Bech in the end zone for a six-yard score. He then completed four straight passes on his final drive to push the Raiders into the red zone before narrowly missing receiver Deven Thompkins for another TD.

“I see an ascending player,” head coach Klint Kubiak said of Mendoza postgame. “We’ve just got to keep getting better.”

Mendoza finished 10-of-16 for 97 yards and a touchdown. His connection with fellow rookie Malik Benson — off a play-action dropback and through three defenders — displayed the arm talent necessary for NFL throws and showed his ability to play from under center. Finding poise to throw a touchdown a few plays after running into a sack also showed the resiliency that’s needed to play the position at this level.

“He did a great job,” quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “He moved the football, he scored points, gave us a chance to score points and operated well.”

Mendoza, however, chose not to relish in his highlights.

“Unfortunately, I let my teammates down today,” Mendoza said. “But it’s a growing experience. I feel like we’re all growing and it helped me show that I need to grow a lot.”

The top pick of April’s NFL Draft has brought nothing but positive energy since arriving in Las Vegas. But at the end of an evening that served, in part, as a celebration of the franchise’s new era, he chose to focus on his faults.

Subbing in after Cousins led the starters on a touchdown drive, Mendoza said he felt sped up on his first snaps. He extended his first possession with a third-down completion to Bech on the sideline, but threw rookie running back Mike Washington Jr. into a hard-hitting pass breakup a few plays later. As the Raiders were forced to punt, Mendoza said he needed to “come back to the sidelines and learn from my mistakes.”

He was pleased with his touchdown drive; he gave credit to Washington for setting the score up with a 53-yard breakaway run. He added that Bech made a great catch and the offensive line made great blocks to allow for the third-and-goal touchdown. Mendoza was more interested in talking about his missed reads on his third drive — a three-and-out that concluded with a pair of incompletions — than his first professional touchdown pass. And there was no mention of his string of completions on his final drive, just the missed connection with Thompkins.

The rookie recapped his mistakes while being his jovial self. He joked about players being faster than he thought at the NFL level, preventing him from bending a corner on a scramble. He obliged to take reporters through his gameday routine, detailing his first drive to the stadium and his stretching procedure. But undertones of dissatisfaction carried through his first postgame press conference.

Mendoza’s demanding assessment of his play may stem from what he saw before him. The rookie watched as the veteran Cousins diced up the Cardinals defense on his lone drive, completing five of his six passes for 50 yards, including a 13-yard score to tight end Michael Mayer. Mendoza praised Cousins’ precision.

“Kirk has this time and anticipation. It’s like boom, boom, boom,” Mendoza said. “That’s an area I have to grow in.”

The Raiders have emphasized their quarterback competition is symbiotic, with Cousins and Mendoza working with each other, not against each other. Still, comparison is only natural. Mendoza has seen Cousins compete throughout camp, but watching the Cousins’ command of Kubiak’s offense in-game was more of an awakening of where he stands. Cousins’ performance also made the head coach reaffirm the veteran remains the favorite to start Week 1.

“It’s his job to lose,” Kubiak said of Cousins.

The Raiders’ preference to play Cousins early could ease the pressure on Mendoza; the rookie instead seems to be putting more pressure on himself to meet the veteran’s standard.

Mendoza said that, on Wednesday night, minority owner Tom Brady addressed the team ahead of the preseason game, offering a message to those playing their first NFL snaps.

“He said, ‘No matter how good of a high school or college player you were, the NFL’s a different level,’” Mendoza said. “I felt that tonight, and I have a lot to grow from.”

Historically, the Edmonton Oilers get out of the gate slowly, like the sleepy Chihuahua in the famous GIF. The most famous recent example cost coach Jay Woodcroft his job. In 2023-24, the year Edmonton made the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 18 years, Woodcroft’s crew began the year 3-9-1, leading then-general manager Ken Holland to fire him. Kris Knoblauch replaced Woodcroft, and the team romped to Game 7 of the final against the Florida Panthers.

Will this season see a slow start? There are reasons to be concerned, and the solutions could rock the team in the short term.

The Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl deployment

At his introductory media availability, Babcock was frank about what will happen on the ice in Edmonton. He talked about his conversation with the team’s leadership group (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman) and told the media, “I was very clear to them: unless you’re 100 percent all in on Mike Babcock, I have no interest in being the coach.” There’s not much room for misunderstanding with that starting point.

Babcock also said, “I went through in detail the changes that would have to be made for us to have success when it mattered,” and that will mean some adjustment for the players.

The biggest adjustment this fall? Some fans will say McDavid. He is an exceptional outscorer, with a massive goal percentage edge at five-on-five. Those who criticize the captain for not backchecking or missing assignments overlook the enormous advantage he represents every shift.

McDavid exceeded a 60 percent goal share in 2016-17 and 2023-24, an outstanding total. In addition, his line scored 4.38 goals per 60 in 2023-24, the highest in McDavid’s career via Natural Stat Trick. His most common linemates were Zach Hyman (919 minutes) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (532 minutes). When McDavid plays with elite talent, the top line goes supernova, giving Edmonton a five-on-five line with outscoring results normally expected from a power play.

Draisaitl and McDavid have delivered magic for years together. Babcock is looking for an extreme edge with the idea of placing McDavid and Draisaitl together. However, the two men were not as productive together in 2025-26.

All numbers five-on-five, via Natural Stat Trick

If the chemistry is there, and one would be wise to bet on it, Babcock might plan to run Nugent-Hopkins as the second-line centre. That said, the numbers last season were poor with Nugent-Hopkins in that role. His line had a 37 percent goal share and scored 1.6 goals per 60 when playing away from McDavid and Draisaitl.

Many fans think Babcock will fade the idea of McDavid-Draisaitl together, but every coach since Todd McLellan has found it impossible to resist. Though it’s possible, though unlikely, that Nugent-Hopkins will enjoy a renaissance on the second line, the worry is Babcock might take an extended period to conclude the team is without an above-average second-line centre if the two big talents play together. That could cost some early-season games. If that scenario becomes reality, Babcock would probably agitate for an upgrade, engaging general manager Stan Bowman to acquire a veteran second-line centre.

Should fans worry about early-season losses because of Babcock’s lack of experience in this area? The team would indeed be vulnerable if McDavid-Draisaitl play too much on the same line and Nugent-Hopkins continues to erode as a centre facing top-level opposition. A slow start is more likely if Babcock pursues the plan vigorously without regard to what happens when McDavid-Draisaitl are at rest five-on-five.

Evaluating Josh Brown

Bob Stauffer suggested on “Oilers Now” earlier this summer that rugged defenceman Josh Brown will get the chance to make the big club, despite real concerns about his ability in coverage. In his last two full NHL seasons (2022-23 and 2023-24, with the Arizona Coyotes), Brown posted a 45 percent goal share (42 percent expected) in 1,493 minutes. When he was off the ice, the rest of the Coyotes defencemen performed at a higher level with a 48 percent real and expected goal share, via Natural Stat Trick.

The numbers suggest adding Brown and his rugged edge will make the team less efficient defensively. It’s an idea brought to life via a previous professional relationship and is unlikely to succeed.

Should fans be worried? In this case, likely not. Brown’s making the team as one of the Oilers’ top seven defencemen would mean losing a productive NHL player on waivers. A good guess has the defensive group for opening night as Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard, Jake Walman, Connor Murphy, Ryan Shea, Ty Emberson and Shakir Mukhamadullin.

Brown will get a chance to compete, but an organization already poised to risk Spencer Stastney and Alec Regula to waivers is extremely unlikely to further cut into an established NHL defensive crew.

Weighing inexperience

Fans are curious about Ike Howard’s role on the big team this season. Many wonder whether the club can afford to have two smaller wingers with little experience, Howard and Matt Savoie, playing big minutes every night. Some believe the team would be better off cashing Howard for a veteran forward.

In this case, however, Howard represents a wise investment. Young players make mistakes, and those errors sometimes cost games. However, the alternative is stagnation and watching the roster grow old. Bowman liked Howard enough to trade for him, and Howard is a strong bet to emerge as a 20-goal scorer in the near future. Time for the Oilers to give him a full audition in 2026-27.

Bottom line

Two of these issues are easy calls. Brown’s resume doesn’t suggest he will be able to make the grade this fall, so stating he’ll get a chance to make the team costs nothing. If Brown arrives at camp and impresses, the club will send him out and keep his name in mind for recall. Howard is a smart bet to make the team, but even if he doesn’t, the club would be risking a major asset by waiting another year for him to play 50-plus games as an NHL regular. His time is now.

The plot thickens with McDavid-Draisaitl on the top line and Nugent-Hopkins as second-line centre. Babcock hasn’t coached in a decade, and his view of Nugent-Hopkins might not include dozens of recent viewings while the veteran is playing centre. Babcock and his staff could run full steam ahead with Nugent-Hopkins playing tough opponents on an Edmonton second line.

If the coach gets stubborn, and coaches do get stubborn, the team could get outscored badly on the second line. A 64 percent goal share on the top line is exceptional, but a team can’t give it all back when the second unit jumps over the boards. In this small sliver of roster minutiae, Oilers fans might know something Babcock has yet to discover for himself, which could affect the early portion of the season negatively.

Andrew Giuliani, the former executive director of the White House Task Force for the 2026 World Cup, believes that anyone in football who wants rid of Gianni Infantino “needs to get their head examined”.

Giuliani worked closely with Infantino before and during this summer’s tournament and has leapt to his defence amid the ongoing fallout from the FIFA president’s abandoned FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) plan.

Infantino’s U-turn on FFE, which would have seen world soccer’s governing body make stakes in the World Cup available for private investment, has led to UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) concluding he should now resign from his position.

However, Giuliani, son of former New York City Mayor and U.S. President Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, is convinced that is being driven through jealousy.

“It’s politics,” he says, when asked by The Athletic for his thoughts on Infantino’s predicament. “I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen it before when they’ve targeted President Trump from a political perspective. I’ve seen it before when they’ve targeted other people.

“People are jealous when people are very high achievers. And what Gianni Infantino has done for FIFA is he’s taken them to a whole new level that probably they didn’t think was possible.

“You’ve got to remember, this is the very first World Cup that Gianni Infantino was president for landing, right? He inherited the Russia and Qatar World Cups, and did a good job with those, but this is the first one. It’s his vision on this.

“What I’ll tell you is that for any soccer confederation or football federation president who is thinking about not voting for Gianni Infantino, it would probably be one of the most foolish decisions of your professional life.

“This guy literally just put on the largest global sporting event ever without any incident, making over four times the revenue of the last World Cup, and you’re thinking of ousting him.

“If Gianni Infantino doesn’t get re-elected unanimously, then whoever voted against him needs to get their head examined.”

Giuliani (left) was executive director of the White House Task Force for the 2026 World Cup. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Giuliani also quipped that FIFA “might need a ‘Save FIFA Act’” in a similar way to Trump’s ‘SAVE America Act’, which, if passed, would require Americans to provide ID and proof of citizenship to vote in elections.

The former executive director’s support for Infantino follows on from Trump’s Truth Social post on Monday evening, where he said it would be a “terrible mistake” for football’s leaders to oust the embattled 56-year-old.

“FIFA would be making a terrible mistake if, for any reason, they even considered replacing president Gianni Infantino,” Trump’s post read. “He is fantastic, having just presided over the most successful World Cup, by four times, ever presented. If he is gone, it will never be as successful or profitable again.”

Giuliani, like Trump previously, said he was not aware of the FFE proposal before it was reported in the media and called for Infantino’s critics to take a step back and to instead assess his full “body of work”.

He also said he has spoken to Infantino since the fallout and says he has a “good plan over the next few months into March of next year to get re-elected for a third and final term”.

“Look, we’re all human beings, and I think Gianni has made his statement on it recently, but I think it’s one of those things where people have looked and sports has become monetised and commercialised,” Giuliani says of the FFE plan.

“I would just say that you have got to look at Gianni’s full body of work and to also realise that he’s always trying to improve his organisation, and I think that’s the thing.

“Just because you’re always trying to improve doesn’t mean that you’re not going to take a misstep here or there, right? As a human being, it happens, but I would look at the body of work and say this is the guy I’d want leading.”