Mark Davis says no pressure to start Mendoza as Raiders backfield stays split

Mark Davis took the quarterback question off his coaching staff's desk this week. In a CNBC interview, the Raiders owner said there is absolutely no pressure whatsoever from him to start Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick who has thrown eight passes all season. Adam Hill of the Review-Journal transcribed the full comments, and Davis went past the usual owner boilerplate. "Today, there's a lot of pressure put on teams when they draft a guy No. 1 that you have to play him right away," he said, before calling the team fortunate that Kirk Cousins can bridge the gap.

That matters at 4-4. Cousins has Las Vegas out of a four-game hole after Sunday's 38-33 win at the Jets, and the owner just publicly removed the lever that usually forces a midseason quarterback change. Mendoza's entire body of NFL work is still six completions on eight attempts in mop-up duty in Week 5 at New England.

The job that is actually open is running back. Klint Kubiak called the split always a moving target on Tuesday, a day after Mike Washington Jr. took 25 carries for 83 yards on 38 snaps and Ashton Jeanty got two carries for nine yards on 22. Jeanty did catch three of four targets for 64 yards, which is the line item worth tracking. Washington's reward was a Pepsi Rookie of the Week nomination, and per Next Gen Stats seven of his runs gained 10 or more yards, the most by a Raider in a game this season.

Opinion, and labelled as such: handing the job to the back who averaged 3.3 yards a carry is a strange read of that afternoon. Washington earned snaps. Jeanty's two touches were a coaching decision, not a result.

The roster work was minor. Las Vegas signed defensive lineman Anthony Goodlow and released tackle Darian Kinnard on Tuesday, depth housekeeping with the Nov. 10 trade deadline a week out. The Maxx Crosby market keeps dying on the vine. Pro Football Rumors gathered Tom Pelissero's reporting that Crosby read Baltimore's collapsed trade as a reason to stay put, alongside Adam Schefter's claim that the Raiders have not had a single trade conversation about him this season.

San Francisco is next, Sunday on the road. Watch the first-quarter carry count, and watch whether Davis's patience with Cousins survives a bad afternoon at Levi's.