Scott Gulbransen
Three seasons in Las Vegas. Three different starting quarterbacks. One consistent reality: Michael Mayer has never had a real signal-caller throwing him the football.
That changes in 2026. And with it, everything changes for Mayer.
The Raiders’ second-round pick in 2023 enters this season on the final year of his four-year, $9.3 million rookie deal. Three touchdowns and 788 receiving yards over three seasons isn’t the trajectory anyone envisioned when Las Vegas moved up to take him 35th overall. He came in from Notre Dame with the reputation of a complete tight end — blocker, route-runner, red-zone threat — and the production has been underwhelming against that standard.
But before we write the eulogy, let’s be honest about the circumstances.
Michael Mayer’s 2026 with Raiders is Make-or-Break
Mayer’s first two seasons in Las Vegas featured quarterback play so unreliable that offensive weapons of every kind were compromised from the jump. His best statistical season came last year with 35 catches for 328 yards and a touchdown. And that came with an asterisk. He did it behind a revolving door at quarterback with Geno Smith directing an offense that ranked 28th in passer rating. When Brock Bowers missed time with a PCL injury, Mayer stepped up, with a 26.7% target rate on 116 routes with Bowers out, nearly 2 yards per route run. That’s a real player doing real work in a broken situation.
Now the situation is fixed. Sort of.
Kirk Cousins is the quarterback. He’s a veteran who understands how to use tight ends. In his time in Minnesota with Kyle Rudolph and Irv Smith Jr., he showed that. Klint Kubiak’s offense is built around exactly the kind of two-tight-end sets that make Mayer dangerous. Bowers is the alpha. Everyone knows that. But Kubiak’s system doesn’t require a second tight end to be invisible. It requires him to be reliable, savvy, and able to create matchup problems in the middle of the field.
Mayer can do that. The question is whether he will.
Can Mayer Step Up and Show His Value?
This is genuinely the last audition. Teams around the league have kicked the tires on him already, with the Panthers and Broncos both surfacing as potential trade destinations this offseason and Spytek reportedly held the phone but didn’t make a deal. The Raiders kept him. That decision comes with an implicit expectation: produce, or hit free agency in March as a player who never quite lived up to being a second-round pick.
There’s real money waiting for him if he does. A productive 2026 season — even as a complementary piece to Bowers — resets his market value entirely. Quality starting tight ends who can block and catch in a modern NFL offense don’t grow on trees and a full season in a functional Kubiak offense with legitimate quarterback play could put Mayer in a very different conversation heading into free agency than he’s been in the past three years.
Fernando Mendoza could accelerate that timeline even further. If Mendoza takes over mid-season and develops the kind of connection with the tight end room that Kubiak clearly envisions, Mayer becomes part of the foundation of something. An extension isn’t out of the question. Neither is walking in March with interest from half the league.
Both of those outcomes start with the same thing: a healthy, engaged, productive Michael Mayer in 2026.
He’s 24 years old, playing for a contract, in the right offensive system for the first time in his career, with a legitimate quarterback under center. The circumstances have never been better.
The forgotten man has no more excuses. Neither does anyone betting against him.
Related: Fernando Mendoza Dazzles at Indiana Pro Day as Las Vegas Raiders Zero In on No. 1 Pick
