INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza possesses all the traits NFL teams covet in a franchise quarterback.
He's smart, mobile, makes fast reads and quick releases. He has a strong arm and prototypical size. He has three years of starting experience and a national championship, too.
But the once lightly recruited Mendoza learned long ago not to take anything for granted. So if the overwhelming favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick
in April 's draft fulfills those expectations, he'll embrace the pressure to succeed. And if the quarterback-needy Las Vegas Raiders bypass Mendoza, the former Indiana star won't fret. Instead, the Boston-born Mendoza hopes to steal a page from one of his favorite player's game plans.
"Whatever team drafts me, I’m grateful — whether it’s the No. 1 pick or whether it’s the 199th pick,” Mendoza said, denoting the very spot Raiders part owner and seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady was selected in the 2000 draft.
Nobody, of course, anticipates Mendoza sliding that far, though stranger things have happened.
Carson Beck began the 2024 season as the favorite to go No. 1 then suffered a late-season elbow injury that required surgery and forced his transfer from Georgia to Miami. When the league's annual scouting combine rolled around last February, Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward seemed positioned to go at the top. Ward won that battle, going to Tennessee at No. 1, while Sanders had to wait until Cleveland finally took him at No. 144.
This year, though, there seems to be no serious debate. Mendoza is clearly at the head of this class.
He's reaping the benefits. Mendoza recently spent time with two-time Super Bowl-winning brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, as well as Daniel Jones, last season's Colts starter. He even spoke briefly on the phone with Brady during a recent interview with Raiders brass.
And everywhere he went Friday, cameras followed — from the phones popping up at his podium to the subsequent television rounds he made inside the media room to those filming Mendoza strolling the hallways inside the Indiana Convention Center. He does not plan to throw Saturday night because Indiana's 16-game season left him with less time to prepare for the combine than other players. He does intend to throw April 1 at his Pro Day.
“It’s been hectic,” Mendoza said. “A lot of our teammates were joking we played the natty on Jan. 19, and Jan. 23 we had three days of celebrating with a parade. Then it was all off to training. Everybody was going to Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago to go train. That process of being dispersed so quickly shows why you need to be enabled in the present moment, how much it matters to be in the present moment and how much you’ve got to really enjoy the good times while they last."
Some of the quarterbacks in this group understand what Mendoza means.
Beck spent last spring and summer rehabbing in an effort to prove he could regain his pre-injury throwing form. The result: He led Miami to the national championship game in their home stadium, rebuilt his draft stock and now hopes to prove he could be a first-round pick.
“You look at the beginning of the 2024 season, going into it, nobody envisioned that season to go that way, starting with myself,” Beck said. “I didn't know I was going to get injured at the end of the season. I didn't know I was going to end up coming back to college for another year. That was never the plan, right? So when the injury happened, I had declared for the draft. I was going to go through the process and from that point, I'm gone. It's like ‘OK, Gunner (Stockton) is next up.' So when I decided to not go to the NFL, it was like, ‘I’m going to go somewhere else.’"
Drew Allar is facing a similar comeback attempt albeit on an expedited schedule.
He returned to Penn State last fall rather than turning pro to pursue a national championship. Nothing went right. The top-ranked team in The Associated Press preseason poll faltered early and the season unraveled quickly, leading to the midseason firing of coach James Franklin.
Then in mid-October, Allar suffered a broken left ankle that required season-ending surgery. Now, he's trying to show NFL scouts he's healthy.
“As soon as I really got back to school and started my rehab process my whole focus has been getting to this point, being healthy enough to have the chance to put myself out there and throw," Allar said. “So I am really excited to go out there on Saturday and just cut it loose.”
Allar plans to throw — not run.
For Mendoza, this is a different kind of stage. Here, he's trying to show dozens of teams he's got what it takes to follow in the footsteps of Brady and become some team's long-term solution at quarterback. First, though, he wants to win the job.
“Right now, I'm unemployed,” he said. “So this is my job interview and like everyone says, it's the most important job interview of your life. So right now, I'm just trying to do everything to hopefully get employed.”
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