There's a new chapter in Fernando Mendoza's fairytale story. The kid who once had just one scholarship offer is now expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, headed to the Las Vegas Raiders.
The latest coronation comes after a 16-0 season at Indiana, complete with a Heisman Trophy and a College Football Playoff National Championship.
That's the holy trinity for an NFL Draft prospect. He'll be the fourth player to win a Heisman, a national title and go No. 1 overall in the common draft era (since 1967), joining Cam Newton, Jameis Winston and Joe Burrow.
Those sky-high expectations could be a match made in heaven for Mendoza, set to join a franchise in need of a savior. "It [has] to be the last time we ever have [the top draft choice]," Raiders GM John Spytek said at last month's owners meetings.
That won't be easy. The Raiders can make a case as the NFL's worst franchise this century. They haven't won a playoff game in 23 years and have posted only two winning seasons in that span. If you're under 40, you probably know little to nothing about the Raiders' glory days with John Madden, Tom Flores, Ken Stabler, Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and company.
But you're all too familiar with the Tuck Rule game, Rich Gannon's five-interception performance -- including two pick-sixes -- in the Super Bowl, Jon Gruden's two infamous exits and countless draft blunders.
Bottom line, they need to finally get this right, and it has to start with this pick.
Most of the Raiders' struggles this century trace back to the NFL Draft, which has become a black hole for a once-proud franchise.
Statistically, they are the worst drafting team in the NFL since 2000. Pro Football Reference has a metric called Approximate Value. Think of it as football's version of WAR. Using that metric, no team has gotten less value from its draft picks than the Las Vegas Raiders.
It's been a comedy of errors, beginning with drafting kicker Sebastian Janikowski (yes, a kicker!) in the first round in 2000. They are still the only franchise to select a kicker in the first round in the common draft era (since 1967). If that wasn't enough, they also drafted a punter (Shane Lechler) in the fifth round that year. They remain the only team in the modern era to take the first kicker and punter off the board in the same draft.
Somehow, that's just the beginning. Look away, Raiders fans. From 2002-07, they made first-round picks like Napoleon Harris, Robert Gallery, Fabian Washington and JaMarcus Russell. The punch line: the four players drafted immediately after those picks -- Ed Reed, Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Rodgers and Calvin Johnson. Talk about a bad beat four times over.
Those four will all have a Hall of Fame bust someday (three already do), and all the Raiders have to show for their picks is the start of a legendary list of draft busts. Let's not forget Darrius Heyward-Bey, D.J. Hayden, Karl Joseph, Rolando McClain, Gareon Conley, Johnathan Abram, Clelin Ferrell, Damon Arnette, Alex Leatherwood, Henry Ruggs III and Tyree Wilson.
No whiff was worse than JaMarcus Russell, of course -- the Raiders' last No. 1 overall pick back in 2007 -- who is considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. Incredibly, he had the same number of regular-season wins in his career as Tom Brady (199th pick in 2000) had Super Bowl wins (seven). Go figure: a player with all the talent in the world, renowned for his ability to throw 60-70 yards from his knees (Russell), could become an all-time bust, while someone viewed as a nobody became the winningest player of all time (Brady).
Unfortunately for the Raiders, they've had enough brushes with unrealized potential to make a painting. Al Davis' obsession with speed took a dark turn in the 2000s that still haunts the franchise. In his final 10 years as Raiders owner (2001-11), Davis drafted 14 players (many of them first-round selections) who ran a 4.35 or faster 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. That's 10 more than any other team in that span. None of the 14 made a Pro Bowl with the Raiders.
The nightmarish list: Kenyon Rambo, Phillip Buchanon, Justin Fargas, Carlos Francis, Fabian Washington, Stanford Routt, Michael Huff, Tyvon Branch, Darren McFadden, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Louis Murphy, Jacoby Ford, DeMarcus Van Dyke and Taiwan Jones.
Davis took the player with the fastest 40 time in each of his final three drafts (2009-11): Heyward-Bey, Ford and Van Dyke. It was a strategy that more closely resembled what you'd do playing franchise mode in Madden than what actually happens in real life.
Davis' worst bad beat in the draft may have come in 2010, when he traded the pick the Patriots used to draft Rob Gronkowski -- yet another reason Brady needs to repay this franchise.
The blame for the Raiders' draft woes hardly falls on one person, though. They have had 14 different head coaches during the 23-year playoff win drought, the most in the NFL. They've had seven different general managers since Davis' death in 2011. Nobody has figured it out.
The Jon Gruden-Mike Mayock pairing combined for six first-round picks from 2019-21: Johnathan Abram, Josh Jacobs, Clelin Ferrell, Damon Arnette, Henry Ruggs III and Alex Leatherwood. It was an utter disaster outside of Jacobs, as Ferrell, Arnette and Leatherwood were widely considered reaches. The duo had a chance to put its stamp on the team with three first-rounders in 2019, but none of them (Ferrell, Jacobs, Abram) got a second contract with the team.
The Raiders may have nabbed Maxx Crosby in the fourth round that year, but their drafting has been so poor that they've actually had to trade three of their best draft picks this century (Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper and Crosby -- though that trade was ultimately nixed) in rebuilding efforts.