RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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When the NFL allowed a franchise to relocate to Sin City, many were concerned that the players would fall prey to one or more of the various available vices.
Rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza is doing his best to avoid any such traps.
Mendoza recently told Mike Silver of The Athletic that he has done his best to avoid the Las Vegas Strip.
“I’ve been there once or twice, but I haven’t really experienced the Strip,” Mendoza told Silver. “ It’s like a boogeyman . A lot of people talk about the Strip like, ‘You don’t want to go there.’
“It’s like when you’re a kid; you’re trick-or-treating, and there’s the haunted house. You’re not trying to go over there.”
(The specific "houses" for which Las Vegas is notorious aren't necessarily haunted. But the operative word starts with the same sound.)
Fernando's avoidance of the Strip comes from a basic desire to keep, as the cliché goes, the main thing the main thing.
“Las Vegas is one of the entertainment capitals of the world,” Mendoza told Silver. “But I have a job to do, and it’s football. I don’t have anybody that really relies on me, if that makes sense, so I can just be psycho about football. And then every once in a while, on an off day or night, I can go out to a movie and watch ‘Spiderman’ or ‘The Odyssey’ or something.
“In Vegas, there is a lot to do, and sometimes it can be seen as activities that wouldn’t be supporting a healthy football lifestyle. But there are different things that you can go see and do that aren’t degenerative activities, per se. There are some great restaurants. But I’m probably not going to be playing blackjack till late at night.”
Mendoza's comments further underscore the fact that both of the team's top two quarterbacks — Kirk Cousins and Mendoza — are among the least likely in the league to fit the image created by "Las Vegas," and by the "Raiders."
Then again, Cousins recently got into a practice-field fight with Maxx Crosby. So maybe, just maybe, a "when in Rome" vibe will prevail, for both quarterbacks.
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