The Clipboard — The Gridiron Court

Just Win, Baby. — the words of House Raiders

Fernando Mendoza was the first claim of the whole realm this spring — the most valuable young man available, taken by Las Vegas because Las Vegas had nothing else. On Sunday afternoon he stood on the sideline in a clean shirt and watched somebody else do his job well.

That was always the arrangement. The trouble is that it worked.

Kirk Cousins was traded out of Atlanta to be adequate immediately, in a house that has not been adequate in years. Nobody promised him a future here. He was bought to stop the bleeding.

His first march in the colours went nine throws, nine caught, and ended with the ball in Jack Bech’s hands for a score. He did that twice more before the afternoon was out, and somewhere in the middle of it he threw the three hundredth scoring ball of his career. Fourteen men in the history of the sport have done that before him.

He was not flawless; he gave it away twice. It did not matter. No song gets written about a man who is merely enough, which is exactly why a losing house buys one.

And that is Mendoza’s difficulty, standing behind him. There is no injury to wait for and no collapse to inherit. Every competent afternoon Cousins has is another Sunday the first pick in the realm spends on his feet, holding a clipboard.

Miami arrived as the youngest house in the league, after a spring in which it let go of nearly everyone worth keeping — including the most famous knight it had, whom nobody has signed since. Its steward, Jeff Hafley, was running his first day.

For one stretch of the afternoon that young house made Las Vegas nervous. It got the margin back to a single score early in the third quarter, and Allegiant Stadium went quiet.

Then a Raider caught the next kick and carried it out to the middle of the field. Cousins, given a short field and no need to be brave, found Ashton Jeanty — the knight this house runs everything through — for his second scoring catch of the day, and the door shut.

Miami’s own lord was put on the grass five times. The man Miami was counting on to do that to Cousins was never heard from. Las Vegas won by two scores, in a game that never felt that close.

So Las Vegas has exactly what it paid for, and the problem that came with it. There is no week off for months — no gentle Thursday, no Monday, no seam anywhere in the calendar where a house stops and quietly tries something new. The succession, when it comes, will not be arranged. It will happen mid-afternoon, after something goes wrong, in front of everyone.

Until then, the most valuable thing this house owns spends its Sundays standing up.

Ships of the week: Cousins and Jeanty, twice through the air, an arrangement working exactly as designed. Villain of the week: the calendar, which has nowhere to put a coronation. Next week: Miami’s young house tries again. Las Vegas keeps the clipboard where it is.

The Record