The process of drafting Fernando Mendoza was not as easy as most people believe it was.

Plus, we continue to get to know the Raiders draft picks.

That plus more on Thursday's edition of the Locked on Raiders podcast for May 7th, 2026.

You are Locked on Raiders, your daily Las Vegas Raiders podcast, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome here, Raider Nation, to another edition of the Locked-on Raiders podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your number one sports podcast network. Of course, we're very proud of that. We're also very proud of the fact that this show continues to grow each and every day, and that's because of your support and the great job.

My man, Ari does behind the scenes,

making sure we look good and sound good each and every day by way of the YouTube page. We shout him out. We appreciate him. He's on Twitter at Ari Produces. You could hit me up as well at your boy Q254. And if you want to be a part of the show, as many of you do, We got the Lockdown Raider podcast voicemail line for you, 707, 654, 46993 as we normally do.

We close things out hearing from you. of the show as many of you do. We got the Locked on Raider podcast voicemail line for you 707-654-4-6-9-3.

As we normally do, we close things out hearing from you. Calls, text, a lot of great feedback. We'll do that coming up. Segment number three. Segment number two, we'll continue with our Get to Know series as we go through each and every one of the Raiders' draft picks. plus we'll go through a handful of the guys that are und, the free agents, guys that we believe have an opportunity to not only make the team, but also make an impact on the team. So what we'll do in segment number two, we'll focus in on fifth round pick, Hezekiah Masses out of Cal. We'll also hear a little bit about Fernando Mendoza when he was there at Cal Berkeley. So that'll come up a segment number two.

Here is segment number one news and notes of the day.

And let's go ahead and jump right into it.

And really good article on Monday morning quarterback, s.i.com by Albert Brear, one of the best

in a business NFL insider.

His article is called How the Raiders landed on their franchise quarterback.

Call up Fernando. He's the guyiders landed on their franchise quarterback. Call up Fernando.

He's the guy.

And really good, detailed article.

And I suggest that everyone goes and reads it, right?

I mean, because this sound that I'll play for you is only going to do a little bit of justification for it.

But really good, detailed article on the entire process that the Raiders went through. And the reason why I think it's important to bring it to the table is because they didn't just say, oh, that's Fernando Mendoza. He went 16-0, Heisman trophy winner, won the national championship game. All right, he's the quarterback. They went through their due diligence. They went through the entire process. They made sure he continued to check all the boxes. And as you'll hear from Albert Breyer in a few minutes, who actually was on Raider Nation Radio 920 on Wednesday on the morning tailgate, really a good, good interview. It's probably about 15 or 16 minutes long. You can go check out the whole thing at LVsportsnetwork.com. It's right there on the podcast. But really good stuff. It was not just, like I said, oh, he's the quarterback. There is no other quarterback. He did all these great things in college. They wanted to make sure that he truly was the right guy for the job. So again, his article dropped on, as a matter of fact, Monday. it's called how the raiders landed on their franchise

qb call it fernando he's the guy over the past seven months the ownership and the front office

stayed in big cities small towns and poured endless hours into studying the twenty 26 NFL drafts

number one pick so here's just one soundbite it's pretty lengthy about three minutes from

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