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Kirk Cousins, Fernando Mendoza will both get playing time for Raiders in pre-season opener

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HENDERSON, Nev. — Raiders quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza will both play Thursday night when Las Vegas hosts the Arizona Cardinals in a pre-season game, but coach Klint Kubiak wouldn’t provide details on how much playing time they and their teammates would get.

“Our starters are going to play,” Kubiak said, adding that standout pass rusher Maxx Crosby’s availability would be “TBD.”

Cousins, who’s entering his 15th NFL season, has been running the first-team offence in training camp and is expected to be the starter when the Raiders open their season Sept. 13 against Miami.

Mendoza was the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft. The Heisman Trophy winner, who led Indiana to its first national championship, has worked with the second-team offence nearly all camp.

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Mendoza ran the first-team offence Saturday, when Cousins and Crosby were held out of team drills because of a tussle between the two the day before.

“He’s continuing to grow,” Kubiak said Tuesday before the Raiders’ scheduled practice that night at Allegiant Stadium. “It’s been a really impressive training camp as far as how he’s prepared, and then he goes out there to practice. Things don’t happen on the paper, the playbook, exactly how they do on the field. I think he’s done a good job of adjusting.

“With all of our players, we ask that as they gain experience and they make mistakes that they don’t make the same mistake twice. I think that he’s done a good job of that, and now it comes to live bullets with a live pass rush, and that’ll be a whole other animal.”

Benson has chance to shine in pre-season

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The pre-season opener also provides an opportunity for rookie wide receiver Malik Benson to show that his promising play in camp can translate into a game.

Drafted in the sixth round out of Oregon, Benson quickly played his way onto the second team. He began to develop a rapport with Mendoza before they arrived in Las Vegas, and their connection has been obvious in practices. He also has worked with the starters and began to build an on-field relationship with Cousins as well.

“Just for my confidence, I feel like it has been really good for me,” Benson said of being with the top group. “Just to show myself that I can do it. I’m really glad that the coaches and my teammates are giving me (the) opportunity. They’re trusting me, and I’m able to show that I can be trusted.”

Kubiak said rookie cornerback Jermod McCoy will receive plenty of playing time, which could showcase the progress he’s made since tearing an ACL after the 2024 season at Tennessee.

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He had been considered a first-round talent, but the Raiders got him in the fourth round after trading up a spot.

“Jermod has been practicing almost every day we’ve been out there, so we expect him to play,” Kubiak said. “We expect him to compete and look forward to watching him play.”

Injured players on the mend

Defensive ends Kwity Paye and Keyron Crawford, guard Caleb Rogers and wide receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. have missed practice in recent days with undisclosed injuries.

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“Most of those guys we expect to play in this game,” Kubiak said. “Not all of them will, and we hope the ones that don’t play get to go get ready for that Houston game (next week).”

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Andrew Flintoff’s Son Produces Batting Masterclass In Lancashire’s 443-Run Innings

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Rocky Flintoff, son of legendary England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, is following in his father’s footsteps. The 18-year-old has so far played five First-Class matches and 14 List A matches. Back in 2025, he scored a historic century for England Lions against a Cricket Australia XI, surpassing his father to become the youngest player to score a maiden century for the team. Flintoff, then aged 16 years and 291 days, surpassed his father’s maiden ton for the England Lions, which Andrew scored at the age of 20 years and 28 days.

On Tuesday, Rocky scored a 65-ball century for Lancashire against Somerset in the One-Day Cup. The young batter eventually reached 123 off 76 balls. His innings included seven sixes and 10 fours. His teammate Keaton Jennings scored 156 off 127 balls. Courtesy of the two centuries, Lancashire posted 443/6 in 50 overs. Lancashire won the match by 174 runs.

Last week, Andrew Flintoff said he had stepped down from his role as coach of the second-string England Lions following his appointment as head coach of the Sydney Thunder in Australia’s T20 Big Bash League. The former England captain had been in charge of the Lions for almost two years after returning to cricket in 2024 following a car crash while presenting the BBC motoring show Top Gear.

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“Unfortunately, I’ve made the decision to step away from my role with the Lions,” said the 48-year-old Flintoff.

“Not only have I enjoyed my time and the opportunity to work with the best young cricketers in the country, but I have also taken great pride in seeing them develop.

“I’d like to thank the coaches and staff for all their passion, tireless work and support they give every day. In particular, Ed Barney, who I’ve loved working with and was so lucky to have as a performance director, and obviously Rob (Key) for trusting me with one of the most important roles in English cricket.

“I can’t wait to get started with the Thunder later in the year and see where coaching takes me.”

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Flintoff was England Lions head coach for 23 months, but also spent time with England’s senior white-ball teams and was part of the backroom staff at the 2024 T20 World Cup.

Former all-rounder Flintoff, a key figure in England’s 2005 Ashes-winning triumph, also coached the Northern Superchargers franchise in English domestic cricket’s Hundred competition.

With AFP inputs


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Xbox CEO’s new TES VI post gets fans theorizing full title

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Xbox CEO Asha Sharma recently sat through a TES VI “live playthrough” session, finding its scale “incredible”. Her cryptic X post about it, however, has the community focusing on something else: the full title. With eight asterisks after “The Elder Scrolls VI”, the post may or may not be a hint at what the second bit will be called.

Crucially, if the asterisks are indeed a hint of how many letters there are, it doesn’t fit “Hammerfell”, the most widely theorized title.


As community theorizes TES VI subtitle, Asha Sharma’s post also establishes big dev milestone

Long-time Elder Scrolls followers are currently reading into the fine print of the asterisks to deduce what the title could be. Since Hammerfell is out, the going theory that I personally find the coolest is TES VI: Sentinel, which would sort of fit the naming pattern of TES II: Daggerfall as a synecdoche to High Rock.

Other ideas being thrown around include the two-word options: High Rock, Skyrim II, Iliac Bay itself, or even Redguard (encore).

Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning. The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.

Indeed, with the complete lack of any official information, these morsels are all we have to go by. The fact that it’s going to be south of Iliac Bay at all is speculation based on the only trailer all those years ago in E3 2018 (and some unverifiable leaks afterwards).

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Asha Sharma’s post today, too, is only another trail of breadcrumbs that may lead nowhere. For all we know, it’s just a random number of asterisks to classify the title. Or, perhaps, to reclaim some mystique lost with Bethesda’s sudden roadmap transparency.

The bigger redguard fish to fry in this tweet is the fact that a “live playthrough” of an internal build of TES VI was presented to the big boss. This is only the second-ever direct quote from an Xbox C-suite about watching some gameplay.

A few weeks ago, Xbox exec Matt Booty confirmed in a Variety interview that TES VI is “coming along well”, having seen the game in action up front. Today’s tweet is marginally more pointed, broaching the subject of scale.

Elder Scrolls has progressively become bigger from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim. It’s most likely owing to the waning hardware constrictions with each era, but the enigmatic Elder Scrolls VI will doubtless be another step of this increment.

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Back to the more important topic, though: it’s a vertical slice in all likelihood, and the game is far from its final leg. It’s only been three years in production after all. Still, a direct X post from the Xbox CEO herself presents a big milestone.

If not indicative of its actual production stage, it’s at least a vote of confidence. With much restructuring and studio-cuts to narrow their portfolio, Xbox has recently put more money into accelerating the development of Fallout and Elder Scrolls projects.

One of Bethesda’s flagship titles, the game has more wind on its sails than past years, and we might even get to see a second (and a real) trailer this TGA. Meantime, all the wind we get is wild gusts of TES VI rumor floating on hopes and dreams.