The Las Vegas Raiders may be on the verge of drafting Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza with the No. 1 overall pick, but they’re not planning to throw him into the fire right away. Head coach Klint Kubiak has been clear; he wants a steady, experienced hand leading the offense to start the year. That mindset is exactly what drove the team to bring in veteran Kirk Cousins, setting up a classic bridge scenario.

Interestingly, the minority owner, Tom Brady, has a crucial role in bringing the quarterback to Las Vegas. Cousins explained what went on behind the curtains. He texted first and asked Brady to call when he could. Brady FaceTimed instead. 

“I got off the call, and I called my wife,” Cousins recalled on Good Morning Football. “I said, ‘That was a really life-giving call with Tom.’ He gets it. He’s been where I’ve been and then some, and I think he understands what it needs to look like, what it will look like. And I felt really like a shot in the arm after talking to him. And I felt like that was a big nudge for me to come to Vegas.”

What Cousins said next reframed what Brady’s role actually looks like day to day.

“I don’t know that he’s going to be around all the time, but he’s always a phone call, text away,” Cousins said. “And I think, to have a guy who’s won seven Super Bowls, a phone call or a text away, who’s embedded in your organization, it’s gotta be a positive.”

He doesn’t know about the daily involvement. Brady isn’t coaching, isn’t the general manager, and hasn’t made any commitment to a daily presence. But he doesn’t need to be there every day to look after the team. When Matthew Stafford became a free agent briefly in early 2025, Brady reportedly tried to recruit him when the two met at a ski resort in Montana. Brady even followed it up by making calls to Stafford’s camp. Stafford ultimately stayed with the Los Angeles Rams, inking a two-year, $84 million extension, and went on to become the MVP.

With Cousins, Brady made the call, and then showed up unannounced on the first OTA day, stopped by the quarterback room, and caught up in the cafeteria. The effort level shifts from prospect to prospect, but the involvement doesn’t. And it’s something even a player’s agent had told ESPN.

“Tom definitely influences everything that goes on there,” the agent said in January. “The coaching hire, the Geno Smith trade, Matthew Stafford recruitment, he was involved with all that.”

The question of Tom Brady’s footprint in the franchise is settled. As for Kirk Cousins, he’s signed a five-year, $172 million deal, but that’s just on paper. In practice, the Raiders are paying $11.3 million, and the Falcons are covering $8.7 million from his old contract. Add a base salary of $1.3 million, and Cousins stands to make $20 million in 2026.

Beyond that, the Raiders hold $80 million of his contract in a future salary that might never materialize. In essence, it’s a one-year prove-it deal dressed in big-number language.

Cousins has 167 career starts across 14 seasons and three franchises. He has seen enough front offices to know when the plan is real and when it isn’t. He took the deal because Brady, in one video call, convinced him. But he is also not pretending that this plan doesn’t include another quarterback.

Who takes control, Cousins or Mendoza?

Ask Kirk Cousins that question, and he’ll give you a measured answer, one that he learned from his Atlanta stint.

“I don’t want to start unless I’m the best option. I told Klint [Kubiak] that the best players should play,” Cousins said on GMFB. “But certainly as long as that’s the case, I have no qualms with however it plays out. But I do think Fernando [Mendoza] is going to be a great addition to our team. I think he’s going to have a great future in the league. I have no problem being a voice in the room to kind of help him to the degree that I can.”

On the surface, that’s veteran QB speech. At 37, Cousins’ options at football are limited. At the same time, he knows the QB1 job is his to lose because Mendoza needs to get up to NFL speed. But he has seen this exact script before when the Atlanta Falcons chose to bench him midseason for Michael Penix Jr. in 2024, and sidelined him outright last season. This time, at least, he knows how it ends.

Meanwhile, Mendoza already had his top-30 visit on April 7, the same day Vegas opened its voluntary workouts. Cousins revealed that he wants to learn from Mendoza’s throwing technique.

“And he was here yesterday on his draft day visit,” Cousins said. “We were able to watch film together. I think he’ll be a great addition to the room. And I was even telling him how much success he had throwing back shoulders at IU that I’d like to learn a little bit from him on how to throw a good back shoulder.”

While this dynamic evolves in the locker room after the draft, Mendoza isn’t waiting around off the field. On April 6, U.S. Bank named him the face of its ‘Financial Edge’ program for NFL stars. Apart from managing and expanding his endorsements, Mendoza is also learning the Raiders’ playbook. Based on predictions, he knows he is going to the Raiders, and that is why he is using this time to his advantage. Additionally, he has also refrained from going to the Draft in Pittsburgh for that same reason.

Tom Brady went to Montana for Stafford and got turned down. He made one FaceTime call, and Kirk Cousins signed. Now Cousins is in the building watching film with the star who will eventually take his job, telling him the best player should start. That’s the room Brady has put together, whether he is in it every week or not.