NFL Network’s Kurt Warner Talks 2026 NFL Draft QBs with Rich

Kurt Warner walked into The Rich Eisen Show with a confession that reframed the entire 2026 quarterback class for the room: Fernando Mendoza had trained at his Arizona house years before becoming the projected number one overall pick. "Fernando came to the house a couple years ago, right as he was taking over as a starter at Cal, and he trained at my house with me," Warner said, prompting Rich to wonder aloud why the Hall of Famer had buried that detail through months of draft coverage.

Warner's evaluation of Mendoza centered on traits scouts often find in tension. "A lot of times when you have bigger, taller quarterbacks, they can struggle to be accurate," Warner said. "He's a big, longer guy, but he's tremendously accurate, great technique. The ball's going to go where he wants it to go." The piece Warner kept returning to was Mendoza's poise in late-game moments, citing the contested ball against Ohio State, the goal-line run against Miami and the comeback drive against Penn State as evidence of "that big moment gene."

The Las Vegas Raiders landing spot dominated the rest of the conversation. With Tom Brady in the building and Kirk Cousins under contract, Warner laid out the developmental ideal. "I'm a believer that you start young guys when they're ready," he said. "Don't force them into action before they're ready, because we've seen too many guys that get swallowed up by this league because they're trying to survive." Warner expected Cousins had been told the job was a competition, then drew a parallel to his own arc when the New York Giants drafted Eli Manning while Warner was the incumbent.

On Tai Simpson, Warner argued the Alabama quarterback might own the cleanest tape of any passer in the class for the McVay-Shanahan family of offenses, calling him "the best quarterback in this draft in terms of his movement skills, his ability to run the naked bootlegs and buy time and space." The hesitations were real, Warner said: only fifteen college games to evaluate, uneven results within those games, and concerns about a slight build that scouts privately worry will not absorb NFL wear and tear.

Warner sketched a tier behind Mendoza and Simpson featuring Carson Beck, Garrett Nussmeier and Drew Allar, framing each as a potential developmental starter rather than a Week 1 answer. He singled out Allar as the outlier. "He's probably the most gifted thrower of anybody in this class," Warner said, while acknowledging that the on-field play has not yet matched the physical tools.

The conversation closed on Warner's son EJ, who leads the class in regular-season passing yards, and the family's familiar wait. Warner's only ask was an opportunity, the same thing his American Underdog story was built on.