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NFL Insider Jason La Canfora speaks exclusively with Raiders legend Rich Gannon about Klint Kubiak, Fernando Mendoza and why he's finally optimistic about Las Vegas

Jason La Canfora, NFL insider

Key Highlights

Football

A year ago at this time, Raiders legend Rich Gannon couldn’t help but fear the worst for the franchise.

The former MVP quarterback and longtime NFL analyst and broadcaster, still a part of the team’s preseason coverage, had a very bad feeling about the coaching combination of Pete Carroll and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly.

He figured the quarterback room would be overwhelmed and thought the offensive line would be abysmal. He was correct, of course, across the board (3-14 record).

It’s been decades, really, since the Raiders were truly competing with the best in football, and Gannon has been through too much with the iconic organization to get his hopes up too easily. But you can hear a renewed sense of hope in his voice as he discusses the upcoming 2026 season, and sense he is allowing himself to buy in more than anytime recently.

Gannon believes the worst might finally be behind this once proud franchise with minority owner Tom Brady quite involved and rookie head coach Klint Kubiak seemingly up to the task. Executives around the league have lauded the Raiders offseason to me (especially the signing of veteran center Tyler Linderbaum) and first-overall pick Fernando Mendoza is coming off a historic college season at Indiana and isn’t under pressure to have to play and produce right away.

“Man, I’ve been down this road so many times before, with the new coach and you want to believe,” Gannon told me. “I think back to before Coach (Jon) Gruden came back (who Gannon went to a Super Bowl with), even with Pete Carroll last year, and you watched some of the things and what was going on, and I was like, ‘I really don’t know about this, but I’ll try to stay optimistic.’ …

“But you just knew, like, this is going to be really tough. You knew coming out of camp, this is probably the worst offensive line in the league. And they took a running back really high (Ashton Jeanty, sixth overall), and this poor kid couldn’t even get back to the line of scrimmage, it was so bad.

“You could just see it wasn’t going to work out. They really couldn’t get the offense installed. I mean, it was really, really bad.”

“Now, I really am excited. I think Klint Kubiak is the real deal. I’ve known his dad (former NFL QB and head coach Gary Kubiak) a long time and I’ve gotten to know Klint a little bit and he is all football and he’s a great communicator and a wonderful teacher and this is really, really important to him. They definitely have a chance to be better than you think.”

The Raiders’ biggest issues have long been at the top. Owner Mark Davis has a checkered history, being too loyal at times and failing to identify and empower a coach and front office that could keep the team on a winning track for any sustained period of time.

It’s been a while since they had a coveted first-time head coach like Kubiak, with a pedigree for developing quarterbacks and successful offenses. He comes in having just won a Super Bowl with Sam Darnold at QB in Seattle and isn’t a castoff or someone with prior Raiders’ connections who Davis likes hanging out with.

With Brady running point in many ways, those days are over. It’s well known around the league that Brady is heavily invested in Mendoza becoming a franchise quarterback and is like another member of their quarterback room.

Brady is obsessed with the game and understands how to help quarterbacks process and understand and interpret things like no one else; veteran acquisition Kirk Cousins already mastered the system playing for Kubiak in Minnesota and league sources highly anticipate him running the offense the first few weeks of the season, at least.

“I really like this young quarterback,” Gannon said. “I would always say, when I’d talk to Gruden, when I look at a young quarterback there's one thing I really value first, most importantly, is physical and mental toughness. This kid checks those boxes.

“He’s a tough kid and he has a lot going for him, whether he plays Week 1 or Week 6 or whatever. Kirk Cousins will be a calming influence on him and he understands his role and he’s not a selfish guy. They have very similar personalities and he will help Mendoza.”

Last year some rival advance scouts I spoke to about the Raiders thought Chip Kelly seemed almost disinterested (“He stole $5M from them,” as one put it) and there were real questions about whether the players understood what was being asked of them. Heck there were bigger questions about the alleged scheme and what was being asked of them.

The Raiders averaged a paltry 14.1 offensive points per game, last in the NFL. They averaged 245.2 yards per game, last in the NFL. They averaged 3.6 yards per rush, last in the NFL and 5.5 net yards per pass, 28th in the NFL.

With Kubiak prioritizing coaching the QBs and calling plays, there won’t be that sort of disconnect at the top between head coach and coordinator. And Kubiak has never been associated with an offense remotely as putrid as the 2025 Raiders.

Gannon had the chance to spend some time with Mendoza ahead of the Super Bowl and they’ve exchanged numbers. “The kid is a sponge,” Gannon said.

Gannon, a two-time All Pro with the Raiders who may have gone to multiple Super Bowls if not for an injury in a playoff game against an historic Ravens defense, also believes Brady will help him navigate every step of the way with a daily plan for what to do on Monday and Tuesday whether he is starting or not.

“Him getting to be around Brady like that, that’s a special thing,” Gannon said of arguably the greatest player in NFL history. “He’s going to know here’s what to do in every situation and how to handle his day off and what to do everyday throughout the week.

“He’s got great mentors around him, and he also gets to learn from Tom’s ability to explain what happens between plays, in those critical 25 or 30 seconds. As a young QB, I can tell you, that goes by really fast.

“Tom is going to help him process and absorb information and understand how to compartmentalize things and he’ll be able to look at the front and the coverage and the safeties and have a checklist of things to go through. He is going to be exposed to things that a lot of players who get coached even at the NFL level never really get explained to them like this.”

Gannon, like many around the league, expects the Raiders to sort out a few potential issues with the offensive line with Cousins under center at least a few weeks before Mendoza starts to be bled in (“100 percent agree that makes a lot of sense,” Gannon said). The good news is they now have a stellar left tackle and center, signing Linderbaum to a record free-agent deal for a center to get him from Baltimore.

“Getting Linderbaum is such a big deal for them,” he said.

Gannon (who played from 1987-2004 and was a top color commentator on CBS for years after that) is bullish on Jeanty looking like a top 10 pick now with the right infrastructure around him, and the tight-end room, with depth and emerging superstar Brock Bowers, could be the strength of the team.

As for wide receivers, “I don’t really know where they are there, I’ve got some questions,” Gannon acknowledged, but he expects the defense to take a significant step forward.

He believes, like many, the AFC West is the best division in football, and the schedule will offer challenges. But for the first time in a long time, his analytical mind and his hopeful heart, seem aligned about the future of the Raiders.

“It’s been a while since I was this optimistic,” he said.

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