While Kansas City Chiefs fans anxiously await to see who their team is going to select ninth overall, Las Vegas Raiders fans have known who their team is selecting first overall since the moment they locked in the top pick. That would be Indiana quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, who led the Hoosiers to a magical season that ended with them hoisting the championship trophy.
Chiefs fans are hoping that Mendoza ends up being a massive bust for the Raiders but, unfortunately, they might actually land a competent quarterback in this year's draft. Mendoza being a bust would be the best case scenario but if that can't happen, Chiefs fans are definitely hoping that Lance Zierlein of NFL.com is dead wrong with who he compared the Hoosiers quarterback to.
Zierlein does a player comparison for every notable draft prospect and for Mendoza, he picked Joe Burrow. This would not be good for the Chiefs considering how good of a quarterback Burrow is and how often the Chiefs would have to play Mendoza and the Raiders.
Fernando Mendoza compared to Joe Burrow in NFL Draft profile
The AFC West already has Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Bo Nix at the helm but if the Raiders manage to add someone who plays even remotely close to Burrow's level, then that's going to be just downright annoying for Chiefs fans. Sure, Kansas City has the best quarterback in the division but this past season showed that that won't be enough anymore.
The division has only been getting tougher in recent years and if the Raiders build successfully around Mendoza AND he's as good as advertised, the AFC West is only going to get even spicier. This was always going to happen eventually, as the Chiefs steamrolled their divisional opponents for several years but fans were obviously hoping the other three teams would take their sweet time getting back into the swing of things.
The good news is that the Raiders have proven to be dysfunctional more often than not so here's to hoping that they find a way to screw things up for Mendoza. If he does go on to play like Joe Burrow, he can do it somewhere outside of the AFC West and the AFC altogether.
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