Benched QB reduced to playing Lamar Jackson on Titans scout team
The Marcus Mariota era in Tennessee will end in 10 weeks.
That’s when his rookie contract expires. It is a virtual certainty the Titans will not re-sign the 26-year-old.
His five years in Nashville could hardly be ending on a more inauspicious note. After finally being benched in October, for Ryan Tannehill, Mariota this week has an important, if somewhat demeaning, role.
He’s mimicking Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson on the Titans scout team, to best prepare Tennessee’s defence for the elusive, speedy dual-threat wizard.
The sixth-seeded Titans (10-7) visit the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens Saturday night in the first of two weekend AFC divisional playoff games (8:15 p.m. EST, CTV via CBS).
Mariota was a run/pass star in Chip Kelly’s spread system at Oregon.
“I think Marcus will do a great job this week,” Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said Tuesday. “Marcus has done a great job to not only continue to develop his skills as a quarterback, but he also tries to give a great look at each quarterback we’re facing.
“That’ll be what Marcus will do this week, not only preparing for the Ravens, but also to help us prepare for their offence.”
But still. What a comedown.
Mariota by all accounts is a consummate professional who has taken to his new, drastically reduced role as well as could be expected.
But hardly anyone wants to interview him anymore. He’s barely noticeable on the Titans sideline. It’s like going from a starring role on Broadway to dinner theatre in Akron.
Compare Mariota’s plight now to winter/spring 2015, when he was viewed as a can’t-miss quarterback phenom out of Honolulu, via the University of Oregon. The Titans drafted him No. 2 overall, minutes after Tampa Bay selected an even more highly thought-of, can’t-miss quarterback at No. 1, Florida State’s Jameis Winston.
Well, both missed.
Winston by this season’s end became the first player in NFL history to pass for both 30 touchdowns (great!) and 30 interceptions (horrible!) in the same season.
Mariota started 55 games from his rookie season until this past October. He won 29, lost 32. Always he seemed on the verge of realizing his perceived superstar potential, but could never sustain it for more than a couple weeks at a time — before he’d get dinged up, or have a clunker game, or sometimes even just be a passenger of sorts who didn’t do much special in a standout Tennessee win, but who at least did avoid game-losing gaffes.
But as we all know, a quarterback’s greatest attribute cannot be the bad things he doesn’t do. It has to be the great things he routinely does do, and in far greater frequency than the bad things.
Mariota started just two playoff games over his first four seasons in Tennessee, both two years ago — an upset win at Kansas City, followed by a blowout loss at New England. Mariota played pretty well in both. Combined he completed 60% of his throws for 459 yards, four touchdowns and only one interception.
His most impressive season might have been his second, in 2016. Mariota threw 26 touchdown passes against just nine interceptions — outstanding for a second-year player. He never came close to throwing 26 TDs again.
In 2017 he threw more interceptions (15) than touchdowns (13).
Last year he threw for only 11 touchdowns, against eight picks as the Titans failed to make the playoffs.
When the club for the second straight off-season declined to offer Mariota a lucrative second contract last spring, you knew ownership, management, Vrabel and his staff had concerns. After the Titans obtained Tannehill via trade from Miami last March, there was no misinterpreting the message to Mariota. Perform better early on this season, or else.
“Or else” happened.
Mariota started Tennessee’s first six games. After the Titans clobbered hapless Cleveland 43-13 in Week 1 they lost three out of four to fall to 2-3. Mariota never once was intercepted in those five games, but he also was woefully unproductive. So the trend continued.
A 14-7 home-field loss in Week 5 to the Buffalo Bills felt like the last straw. On that day, Oct. 6, Mariota completed 59% of his throws but could generate almost nothing positively and, worse, was sacked five times.
He looked lost, with confidence shattered.
In what some saw as a surprise, Vrabel still started Mariota the following Sunday at Denver. But soon it became clear to everyone that Mariota was done. In a 16-0 loss at previously winless Denver Mariota completed just 7-of-18 for 63 yards and two interceptions, before Vrabel finally, mercifully yanked him.
In went Tannehill, who instantly looked better. And played better.
Players took to the feisty eighth-year pro, and there was no turning back. The Titans quickly became Tannehill’s team.
Mariota has been his backup, and the weekly scout-team quarterback, ever since.
Come mid-March and the opening of free agency, some team will give Mariota a chance next season. If only to fight to be the top backup. Who knows, as with Tannehill this year (who similarly struggled to ever get over the hump in seven years in Miami), the change might reinvigorate Mariota’s career — be the best thing for him.
As Josh McCown proved again this year, at age 40 no less, a reliable backup quarterback who can serve as a savvy, mentoring veteran in support of some new can’t-miss kid — and who doesn’t stink it up whenever pressed into emergency service — can find employment, somewhere, for years and years in the NFL.
That may become Mariota’s new lot in life.
Beats flippin’ burgers.
JoKryk@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JohnKryk
