The Las Vegas Raiders making star quarterback Fernando Mendoza the first overall pick of the 2026 NFL Draft didn’t prevent the Raiders from being one of five teams to have zero prime-time games on their schedule for the upcoming season.
During a Friday conference call, NFL vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling Mike North offered quite the challenge to the Raiders and Mendoza regarding how they can change when Las Vegas will play future games.
NFL to Raiders: Play your way into prime time
“Not to point fingers, but I think the best comp is probably Tennessee from last year,” North explained, as shared by Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “They drafted No. 1 overall, took a quarterback who looks like he can play in this league, [and] they didn’t happen to get a national television appearance last year, either. … We don’t draft our way into prime time. We play our way into prime time.”
As of Friday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook had the Raiders fourth among the betting favorites at +950 odds to finish the 2026 season with the league’s fewest wins. That says plenty about why fans won’t be seeing Las Vegas in any “Sunday Night Football” or “Monday Night Football” games unless the AFC West club is flexed into a particular broadcast window.
How Fernando Mendoza impacted the Raiders’ schedule
It seems likely that Raiders minority owner Tom Brady and head coach Klint Kubiak will want Mendoza to learn about life in the NFL while serving as a backup for veteran Kirk Cousins through at least a significant portion of the 2026 season. Uncertainty about when or even if Mendoza will take a meaningful snap before 2027 made it easy for the NFL to relegate the Raiders to Sunday afternoons for the foreseeable future.
“As far as the Raiders go, I mean, nobody knows if or when Mendoza might play,” North explained. “It would certainly be great if we knew. We don’t. But they went out and signed a very competent veteran quarterback, and if they find themselves, you know, hovering around .500 and playoff-relevant in the middle of the season, they might be a little more reluctant to pull the trigger and move to the rookie. And if they are playoff-relevant, they will find themselves flexed into bigger national television windows, whether it’s Sunday night, Monday night, or just a bigger footprint on a Sunday afternoon.”
In short, the Raiders may have to either be surprisingly good through December or woefully terrible through the end of September to have any shot at being featured in prime time this season. If nothing else, North’s comments should give Cousins and Co. some extra bulletin-board material for springtime and summer workouts.