July 29, 2026 - 2:39 pm

When Kirk Cousins was an NFL rookie with Washington in 2012, Rex Grossman was the veteran teammate he turned to for guidance as a fourth-round draft pick. Grossman was then in his 10th season with a start under center in a Super Bowl.

Cousins was anything and everything but shy, peppering Grossman with question after question.

“I just felt like I needed to ask him everything I possibly could, maybe to the point of being annoying,” Cousins recalled Wednesday morning at Intermountain Health Performance Center. “He and I built a good rapport over my two years in Washington with him. I felt like having someone like that made a big difference for me in my career.”

Now in his 15th NFL season and first quarterbacking the Las Vegas Raiders, Cousins could make that kind of mark this season on rookie Fernando Mendoza. With 167 career starts (plus 298 touchdown passes) and counting after coach Klint Kubiak announced him as the starter — unless Mendoza unseats him during training camp — he’s a model of professionalism for the future franchise quarterback to learn from and follow.

Cousins, turning 38 next month and making $20 million guaranteed in 2026, practiced Wednesday with the pep in his step of a sophomore set to make his varsity debut. Afterward, he downplayed the significance of Kubiak announcing him the starting quarterback.

“I think in this league, it’s kind of one day at a time,” Cousins said in a tent adjacent to the outdoor practice field. “You’re only as a good as your last throw. You’re only as good as your last practice. … You try to, every day, go out and earn the opportunity and never take anything for granted.”

Perhaps his perspective was sharpened and shaped by his last two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, who lured him away from the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 with $100 million guaranteed. The following month, they drafted Michael Penix Jr., who usurped him as their starter by season’s end.

The following season, when Penix went down with a season-ending tear in his left ACL, Cousins went from the best-paid backup to victor in five of his last seven starts. Kubiak knows he’s a model for Mendoza but also values the top-end play that led to seven touchdown passes against two interceptions and four straight wins to finish 2025.

“His value as a player on the team is the most important thing,” Kubiak said Tuesday. “His leadership, his veteran presence and the way he played in the spring was excellent. So, that’s why we brought him here, to play really good football and obviously the mentorship, that’s a byproduct of that. That’s the kind of guy Kirk is.”

With Cousins guiding the first-team offense, Mendoza operated the second team Wednesday with poise and precision — completing passes and scrambling successfully around the left end during 11-on-11. Mendoza and fourth-year passer Aidan O’Connell — who worked Wednesday with the third team — are tasked with pushing Cousins, per Kubiak, but the trio (plus fourth-stringer Jacob Clark) is competing collaboratively.

“That’s pro football,” Cousins said. “I think every day we go out there, we all try to work together and raise the standard every day for one another. I think every position group, we’re all competing. I just think that’s the world we’ve lived in even going back to college. … We’re all supporting one another and working together. That’s just the journey we’ve always been on, and it’s pretty much the norm.”

Cousins of course is closer to the end than the start of his journey in the NFL, drawing on experience to help the Raiders coalesce offensively. Fellow free-agent signee and center Tyler Linderbaum said Wednesday that during organized team activities, Cousins referenced a situation from 2018 and noted “not a lot of guys that can do that and pull from all those games and experiences, and he’s learned from them to help him and now help this team be successful.”

From the questioner to the answerer — and a Raider.

“He’s a great leader and role model that you want in there at the quarterback position,” Linderbaum added. “A guy that’s played a lot of football, and I’m just grateful to be able to spend time with him and learn more about football being around him.”

Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on X.