There are varied schools of thought when it comes to a rookie quarterback’s first preseason start. We often hear about how banal teams try to be in an effort not to give away any valuable early-season play calls, but just as many coaches believe in creating an environment containing some stressors in order to get a sense of what the quarterback will do on an actual game day.
In the preseason debut of Raiders No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza, we saw something of a middle ground. First-year head coach Klint Kubiak—himself making some adjustments and leaning heavily on former NFL head coach Mike McCoy as more of a game manager, which could be a sign of what’s to come—came out and ran plays that, according to one coach with knowledge of the Shanahan system, were definitely “not Day 1 installs.” The Raiders ran a fair amount of jet motion and incorporated that into their two-back running game (you can read more about a revival of two-back offenses in my preseason primer).
