The Las Vegas Raiders were in an interesting spot at the NFL trade deadline. They're currently 4-5, which might not be great, but with seven playoff teams in each conference, they're just 1.0 game back of a playoff spot through the first nine weeks of the season. Given that, it'd have made sense for them to make a push for the playoffs, or at least not trade away their starting quarterback, who had been playing well for the most part.

Instead, the Raiders did, in fact, trade their quarterback, Kirk Cousins, to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for a third-round pick, essentially handing the reins under center to No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza. Some Raiders fans who believed in this team might not be thrilled with this, but here's why it made sense for Las Vegas to begin the Mendoza era right now.

The Raiders were not as good as their record suggested

The Raiders' record suggests they are fringe playoff contenders, but are they really? I mean, their four wins have come against the Dolphins, Chargers, Saints and Jets, teams with a combined record of 6-27 as of this writing. The Saints are the best of that bunch with a 3-5 record. Their five losses have come against the Chiefs, Patriots, Bills, Rams and 49ers, legitimate postseason, if not Super Bowl, contenders. Three of those five losses have come by at least two scores.

The Raiders have proven they can take care of lackluster competition, which does matter, but that doesn't matter too much when they're 0-5 with several ugly losses against the kinds of teams they'd need to beat to make the playoffs, let alone hoist a Lombardi Trophy. With games against the Seahawks, Broncos and Browns next up, the Raiders could've easily been 4-8 even with Cousins.

So sure, this team is in contention, technically, but even had they kept Cousins, given how they've played against good teams, they'd be out of it in a few weeks anyway, and clearly, the front office knew that.

Fernando Mendoza needs to play

Even beyond the team needing to accept reality, the simple fact of this matter is that Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, needs to play. Signing Cousins as a placeholder made sense. They had a backup plan in the event Mendoza wasn't ready to step in Week 1, and who better for him to learn from than a decorated veteran like Cousins?

Mendoza watched nine games of Cousins, most of which he played well in, and that feels like enough. At a certain point, the Raiders needed to take the training wheels off and let the future of their franchise get his feet wet at the NFL level, and now, they're doing that with half the season remaining.

Now, the Raiders can see what they have for the future, while Mendoza can get comfortable before inevitably starting games in 2027 for a Raiders team that, who knows, might actually be closer to making a playoff push than we thought they'd be earlier this year. There's no better time for Mendoza to begin gaining chemistry with the likes of Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty and Tre Tucker than right now.