Fernando Mendoza is going to walk across that stage in Pittsburgh on Thursday, shake Roger Goodell’s hand, and hold up a Raiders jersey while the world nods along. Betting markets closed him at -20000. Mel Kiper has him #1. The entire sports media apparatus already moved on to round two. Completely, totally, boringly correct.
Meanwhile, Taylen Green is sitting somewhere on Day 3 of your draft board and every team that passes him is going to spend the next four years watching film and wondering.
The combine numbers are almost unfair to type out. Green ran a 4.36 forty at the combine — third-fastest ever recorded by a quarterback, behind only Michael Vick and Reggie McNeal. His RAS score came in at 9.99 out of 10.00, ranking him second all-time out of 1,126 quarterbacks evaluated since 1987. His vertical jump — 43.5 inches — is an ALL-TIME QB record. He is 6’6″, 227 pounds, and he moves like he doesn’t know that’s not allowed at his size.
Forty-six career starts at Boise State and Arkansas. Not a one-year wonder. Not a workout warrior with 12 games of tape. The guy has been doing this for years, and Sports Illustrated called him “who Anthony Richardson was supposed to be.”
That framing is doing a lot of work, and it should.
Richardson went 4th overall in 2023 on pure upside and the NFL paid first-round money for a question mark that still hasn’t cashed. Green is offering the same toolbox — freakish athleticism, dual-threat ceiling, the kind of run threat that forces defensive coordinators to diagram new concepts — except the price tag is a fourth or fifth-round pick. The downside is already priced in. You’re not gambling your franchise on him. You’re buying a lottery ticket with a real chance to hit.
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported that multiple coaches independently compared Green to a young Colin Kaepernick — specifically the version that thrived in Jim Harbaugh’s RPO-heavy scheme in San Francisco, reading coverages and taking shots downfield when things broke down. An anonymous AFC executive told reporters: “He’s a very unique talent — Kaepernick-ish, kind of. But it’s going to take the right head coach, the right play-caller, the right vision.” That’s not a dismissal. That’s a blueprint.
The concerns are real — his completion rate sat at 60.7% last season and his turnover-worthy play rate more than doubled under pressure. ESPN’s Ben Solak was direct in his scouting report: “His throwing mechanics are extremely rough… Any offense fielding Green would need to rely heavily on the QB running game.” Noted. Also noted: Josh Allen had the roughest mechanics in the 2018 draft and won an MVP.
Now here’s the detail that makes this interesting: the Pittsburgh Steelers — the HOST CITY TEAM — brought Taylen Green in for a top-30 pre-draft visit on April 13. Ten days before the draft that their city is throwing. Aaron Rodgers hasn’t committed. The Steelers need a quarterback. And they quietly sat down with the most athletically freakish QB in this entire class in their own building before the whole country showed up.
That’s not nothing.
Kiper has him 139th on his final board. Day 3 value on a guy whose athletic profile has exactly two comparables in 40 years of NFL draft history. Someone is going to take that bet this weekend, and in three years they’re going to look very smart.
Remember the name.
