Raiders-Cardinals offers possible intriguing Thursday night game

The Arizona Cardinals will release their 2026 regular-season schedule Thursday night, and they won't likely have many prime-time games. They are not a particularly popular team. They are not particularly intriguing. They aren't expected to be competitive.

However, if they do get a prime-time game, there is one possibility that has a few fun storylines.

One potentially perfect prime-time game for the Cardinals

The one matchup that could have some intrigue is against the Las Vegas Raiders.

A Raiders-Cardinals Thursday night matchup would make sense, but it needs to be later in the season.

No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza might not start the season as the starting quarterback, as the Raiders signed Kirk Cousins. However, Mendoza will take over at some point.

Jacoby Brissett is expected to be the starting quarterback to start the season, but as the Cardinals are not expected to be very good, it would make sense at some point to see them make a move to rookie Carson Beck, drafted in the third round.

• The game can't be too early in the season. Cousins vs. Brissett is a snooze-fest. It needs to be late enough where Mendoza and Beck are starting.
• It can't be too late in the season, as Thursday night games are better when they have playoff implications December and beyond. Neither the Cardinals nor the Raiders will likely be in the playoff picture late in the year. So from about the start of November to the first week to the first week in December is the sweet spot.

Now, here's the pitch.

A Raiders-Cardinals Thursday night game in November would give you these storylines:

• The No. 1 pick (Mendoza) vs. the No. 3 overall pick (Cardinals RB Jeremiyah Love)
• A rematch of the college national championship game from last season — Mendoza led Indiana to a national title over Beck and Miami.

A game that would otherwise only air in Arizona and Nevada on Sunday now has some intrigue for a national audience.

For as uninteresting as the Cardinals will be on a national stage, this possibility actually might be interesting.