“That’s What Tom Brady Was Known For,” Kurt Warner Sees Big-Game Trait in Fernando Mendoza

Fernando Mendoza reached draft night after one season at Indiana. A season in which he led the FBS in passing touchdowns with 41, led the country in passer efficiency at 182.9, accounted for 48 total touchdowns, won the Heisman Trophy, and finished a 16-0 run that delivered Indiana its first national championship.

By Thursday morning, the discussion around him was no longer whether he would be the first quarterback selected. It is whether the Raiders would make official what much of the league had been expecting for weeks with the No. 1 overall pick. Las Vegas owns the top pick, Mendoza is widely projected to go first, and the quarterback’s final college season gave teams the kind of resume that usually closes debate rather than opens it.

ESPN’s draft scouting report highlighted his 79.2% adjusted completion percentage in 2025 and described him as one of the cleanest operators in the class, while he is also the national leader in passing touchdowns, passer rating and points responsible for. The case also extends beyond the box score.

NCAA.com’s pre-draft profile traced Mendoza’s rise from Cal transfer to Indiana centerpiece, noting that he led the Hoosiers to a Big Ten title and then through the College Football Playoff to the program’s first national championship. He did it in a year when quarterback-needy teams were already searching for a clean top-of-the-board answer.

When Kurt Warner entered the conversation this week, he was stepping into a prospect profile that had already done most of the work. Mendoza had the production, the awards, the postseason wins and the likely No. 1 destination. Warner’s comments added a quarterback’s voice to a file that was already heavy with evidence.

1. Kurt Warner Reveals Fernando Mendoza’s Tom Brady Trait

Speaking on The Rich Eisen Show, Warner said of Mendoza, “He seems to have that big moment gene. When the game is on the line, when you need a play to be made, he made it over and over and over again. That’s what Tom Brady was known for.” Warner is a Hall of Fame quarterback who won two NFL MVP awards, a Super Bowl MVP, and later moved into analysis with NFL Network. NFL.com’s analyst profile lists Warner as a Pro Football Hall of Famer, four-time Pro Bowler, two-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl XXXIV MVP.

2. Fernando Mendoza’s Heisman and 16-0 Season Became the Undeniable Argument for No. 1

Mendoza’s 2025 season was the part scouts could not ignore. He started all 16 games, threw for 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns against six interceptions, ran for seven more scores, and led the FBS in passing touchdowns, passing efficiency and points responsible for. Those are top-of-the-board numbers before the postseason context is even added. The year was full of marker games. Mendoza produced a Big Ten title-game MVP performance against Ohio State, then delivered a 38-3 Rose Bowl win over Alabama in which he threw three touchdowns, followed by a five-touchdown Peach Bowl against Oregon. In the national championship game against Miami, he threw for 186 yards, ran for a touchdown and helped close a 27-21 win that delivered the first national title in school history. The awards followed. Mendoza is Indiana’s first Heisman winner and he completed 226 of 316 passes for 2,980 yards and a nation-leading 33 touchdowns entering the ceremony, with the Hoosiers then finishing the run with the national title. ESPN’s season page later logged his full-year totals at 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns. What helped him at the top of the draft board was that the efficiency matched the output. Mendoza finished with the best passing efficiency mark in the country. Teams were not being asked to imagine a breakout. They had one. That is why Mendoza spent April being discussed less as a risky first quarterback and more as the quarterback likely to define the top of the draft. Reuters described him as a likely No. 1 pick when he declared, and multiple draft-night reports treated the Raiders connection as the draft’s least complicated piece.

3. Why the Raiders’ No. 1 Pick is Locked for Mendoza

Las Vegas is not just any team at the top of the board. The Raiders hold the No. 1 overall pick. They signed Kirk Cousins, but Mendoza told The Dan Patrick Show he has studied Cousins’ game and views him as a model because of how he wins from the pocket. Reports framed that veteran presence as part of the landing spot rather than a reason Mendoza would be kept off the board. Mendoza’s own handling of draft week fit the same profile. He chose not to attend the draft in Pittsburgh and instead planned to watch from home in Miami with his family, a decision he explained partly around his mother’s long battle with multiple sclerosis. That detail became part of the broader Mendoza story this week because it kept the attention on the people and circumstances that shaped him before he reached the top of the board. All of that matters because the No. 1 pick conversation is usually about uncertainty. In this case, the uncertainty was thinner. The Raiders needed a long-term quarterback, Mendoza had the Heisman season and national title run, and the franchise already had Brady around the building while Warner was publicly describing Brady-like poise in Mendoza’s game. The strongest part of Mendoza’s draft file is that it did not ask teams to choose between production and winning. He had both. By draft day, reports around Mendoza had become remarkably consistent. Multiple sources have all framed him as the likely top pick, with the Raiders connection treated less as speculation than as the draft’s expected first move.

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• Fernando Mendoza
• Tom Brady
• Kurt Warner