A 3-0 start was nice, but a real test came for the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 4 against the Kansas City Chiefs. A 13-10 halftime lead for the Silver and Black became a scoreless third quarter for both teams, then it got wild as the teams combined for 34 fourth-quarter points.
Unfortunately, the Chiefs escaped town with a 30-27 win.
But for the time being, let's focus back on the weekly "Mendoza Meter," where we use a scale of 1-10 to track how close rookie Fernando Mendoza is to being the Raiders' starting quarterback. "1" means it's not close to happening, and "10" means he better get ready to start next week.
While a team win is an important factor in the equation for keeping Mendoza on the bench, the weekly number more so distills things down to Kirk Cousins' performance, accounting for his health after each game, if applicable.
After Week 1, the Mendoza Meter was already at 5. But after Week 2 and Week 3, it got sent down to a 1 and stayed there. For Week 4, it's staying at 1 yet again.
Fernando Mendoza Meter, Week 4: Kirk Cousins was not the problem in loss to Chiefs
For the third straight game, the Raiders struggled to run the ball against a tough defensive line. The Chiefs had multiple tackles for loss, and Las Vegas yielded just 72 yards on 26 attempts, which is a paltry 2.8 yards per carry.
Take away a 19-yard run from Ashton Jeanty and an 11-yard run from Mike Washington, and the Raiders had 42 yards on their other 24 rushes. Suffice it to say, Cousins had a lot of the onus put on him to carry the offense yet again against the Chiefs.
He started hot, going 3-for-3 on the first drive of the game with a touchdown to No. 3 tight end Ian Thomas. In the first half, he went 12-for-18 for 146 yards with the aforementioned touchdown while posting a 110.0 passer rating.
Akin to Week 3, when Brock Bowers made his season debut, nine of those 12 completions were to tight ends. The Raiders' attempt to mount a scoring drive from their own 1-yard line on the final drive of the game skewed things in multiple ways, including two spikes that count as pass attempts.
So, Cousins finished the game 31-for-52 for 365 yards and two touchdowns with an interception on the final play of the game.
The sheer volume of pass attempts for Cousins brought more downfield throws than would be typical or ideal, and per Pro Football Focus charting, he went 8-for-17 for 161 yards on throws 10-plus yards downfield against Kansas City.
Passer rating is an imperfect metric, and Cousins' 85.8 mark did not reflect how well he played against the Chiefs. His 76.6 QBR for the game, on the other hand, would be a career-best mark over a full season as a starter.
Cousins was not any part of the problem in a close, gut-wrenching loss to the rival Chiefs, unless you hold the last play against him too much. So, the Mendoza Meter will stay at 1 once again this week. See you after Week 5's game against the New England Patriots.
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