What Happened to Marcus Mariota?

there's a thin layer that separates the three tiers of quarterback play in the NFL it sometimes takes a moment to materialize and for the mirages to fade out into what they truly are but since football is a game with the cruelest of gods it seems only fair to divide these three levels into quarterback heaven quarterback hell and quarterback purgatory the first two are pretty self-explanatory there's the one where everyone's happy because the quarterback you drafted or signed is exactly what you want them to be then there's the exact opposite for those less fortunate sometimes sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss each season that fans can no longer even see out of it anymore but the third designation quarterback purgatory might be even sadder in its very own way this level designates players that aren't good enough to consistently stack wins or compile playoff victories but are still good enough at football's rarest position that you can't just cut ties with them especially since more often than not they keep the team afloat today we're gonna talk about a quarterback who's lived in that space for the first five seasons of his career but now it looks like we might have finally hit his Judgment Day that man is of course Marcus Mariota the latest Titans quarterback in a long line to be drafted with high expectations only to find himself on the bench in the end and the team right back to square one following the end of the Mariota tenure in Tennessee there seems to be one prevailing idea when it comes to him that he was never a good NFL quarterback and the Titans have wasted five years in figuring that fact out so to get an honest look today I want to take a look at the whole picture of Mario Diaz career thus far why he's been in quarterback purgatory for the Titans and why he's now found himself benched less than five full seasons after being drafted number two overall by the franchise back in 2015 but Before we jump into what's gone wrong for the former Heisman winner I'd like to take a second to thank this week's sponsor over at sea geek using my code set the edge will get you $20 off of your first purchase on tickets to any live event and they just rolled out a new program called the daily tap where every single week see geek is giving away thousands of dollars in tickets to events like post Malone the Jonas Brothers more all it takes is the tap of button to enter totally free of charge and you can even enter every single day to continue to boost your chances so head on over to SeatGeek to check out the daily tap and use my codes set the edge to get $20 off of your first purchase with them so if we're going to evaluate Mariota from his first snap to his most recent with the Titans let's jump back first to what Tennessee believed that they were getting in the first place with him coming out of Oregon Mariota was a special prospect scouts always have a difficult time with quarterbacks that are outside the mold of typical pro style cubies so Mariota is pure athletic style in Chip Kelly's no Huddle's spread option offense posed an interesting contrast to the other top quarterback prospect in Jameis Winston a pure pocket passer coming out of a pro style offense at FSU while that raised questions about the easiness of reeds within his scheme and his NFL readiness Mariota brought accuracy and decent arm strength to the table coupled with crazy instinct leadership and a great ability to really protect the football and create his own plays when nothing else was there these were all obviously huge pluses and coupling that with how he carried himself off the field and with NFL scouts placed him at the top of a lot of people's draft boards though there were things to work on Mariota style had potential at the NFL level in the same way that a lot of dual-threat talents find success often with a coach that's able to build the offense around they're developing strengths at the time of the draft though rumors world about whether or not teams would trade up to get Mariota it wasn't a huge surprise when he was drafted second overall off the board by the Tennessee Titans now just taking a cursory look at Mario his career over his first five years in the league there's not a lot to be wowed by necessarily but not a lot to get up in arms over either he had a career season in year two putting up over 3,400 yards and 26 touchdowns in Mike Malarkey's first year as head coach for the Titans in their exotic Smash Mouth scheme running an offense that was mostly archaic by modern standards but took advantage of recent trends to carve out success but it feels like since that point Mariota has regressed down to a quarterback that's ranged from controlled at best too scared at worst with his lowest lows hitting 20:19 season that left him benched just six games in so what's happened from when he entered the league as a supposedly electric talent to this point now where we're wondering if he'll ever even be a starter for an NFL franchise again well the quarterback position is one of the most difficult things to evaluate in sports and for good reasons not just because of the complexity of the job they do but because of how much they depend on the infrastructure and players around them to give them an opportunity to succeed so for this video I think it's only fair we should look at both sides of the case for and against Marcus Mariota as an NFL quarterback first and foremost the case for let's talk about scheme and stability I mentioned before that the best quarterbacks to come in and succeed at the NFL level with these dual threat capabilities have had offensive systems that allow them to take advantage of those skill sets for instance take coordinator Greg Roman and his different stints with the San Francisco 49ers and Colin Kaepernick the Buffalo Bills with Tyrod Taylor and now the Ravens offense with Lamar Jackson all of which have made use of his quarterback strengths by utilizing the zone read creative formations and personnel groupings and even the same emphasis on the run game that the Titans have used for years even when looking at coaches with different overall philosophies that principle of adaptability can be found even in someone like Bill O'Brien's use of deshaun Watson spreading out the field utilizing more zone reads and allowing him to make a quick adjustment from college into an NFL offense without limiting the dynamic ability that's quickly placed Watson on an MVP caliber trajectory by contrast let's look at the play callers of mariota's career with Tennessee Ken Whisenhunt was fired just seven games into Mario his career and criticized for holding back both his development as a passer and limiting his ability to open up the defense as a runner Mike Mularkey would take over and that following offseason he'd implemented the affer mentioned exotic Smash Mouth scheme alongside Terry robe iski it was a name that turned out to be a lot more marketing than substance but it's basic premise was mixing modern usage of more shotgun and motion concepts to throw defenses off while still utilizing mostly power run concepts of old it wasn't exactly a rebel canary idea but it helped the Titans offense to find more success than they'd had in years going nine and seven for two years straight even including an insane comeback playoff victory in 2017 but while Mario Diaz numbers hit a peak in the 2016 season 2017 really demonstrated how poor of a fit he was in that basic system despite all of the strengths he came into the league with mobility tempo mastery of quick passing the Titans forced difficult throws in condensed formations and didn't utilize play action anywhere near where they probably should have considering Mario Diaz effectiveness in it during that time while the relative success of the Titans hid Mario does lack of development as a quarterback the following years wouldn't be able to hide that for much longer following a blowout playoff loss to the Patriots in 2017 malarkey was fired and in walked Mike Vrabel with offensive coordinator Matt Lafleur in the offseason 2018 saw even more struggles in Mario Diaz progression as a quarterback despite LeFleur aimed to revitalize the team with elements of the revamped Rams offense with inconsistency and continued injury problems marking another pedestrian season for Mariota and yet another offseason of questions regarding his future as hindsight tells us here in 2019 la fleurs departure and the teams moved to arthur smith that offensive coordinator has made things even worse for the young signal caller throwing only seven touchdowns in his first five games this year as a starter and throwing two interceptions in route to getting benched during a week six game against the Broncos now there's plenty of factors here for both sides of the argument on whether or not Mariota is a good quarterback to be made on one hand he's failed to make significant strides as a passer and still struggles with weaknesses he entered the NFL with but on the other hand he's been saddled with four offensive coordinators three head coaches and three quarterbacks coaches through five seasons there's not a lot of quarterbacks you expect to stagnate for this long but there also isn't this amount of instability found in organizations that have dedicated themselves fully to a young quarterback usually not to mention how absolutely god-awful the Titans play calling has been with Arthur Smith at the helm I'm not even sure how well Tom Brady would do with that level of predictability then on one hand Mariota sustained a number of injuries and holds the ball for too long in the pockets but also on the other hand per Football Outsiders his offensive line has ranked bottom four in pass protection for three of his five seasons as a starter with the other two only placing them around the middle of the pack so yes there's a lot of blame to go around but for as much as I believe Mariota has been dealt a mostly unfair hand in terms of coaching play calling weapons and overall circumstance that doesn't mean there still isn't legitimate reason to place the blame on Mariota shoulders for his own lack of ability to reach his ceiling in the NFL in contrast with the other hotly debated quarterback from the 2015 draft in Jameis Winston who struggles with a Superman complex that results in both massive production and massive meltdowns Mariota has played things safe for nearly his entire career he's never really had elite level arm strength and his tendency to doubt throws for even a split second at times has caused him to miss on easy completions and take sacs that an NFL QB has no business in taking not to mention the constant inability for him to stay on the field hasn't helped her his ability to prove doubters wrong or his ability to continue to grow as a quarterback now I'm not one to actively use health like it's something the player is in control of and Mariota has by all accounts been as tough as they come but with eight games missed in his career and constant problems hampering him over the course of seasons it certainly hasn't helped his ability to continue to play at a higher level regardless of where you stand on whose fault it is for whichever aspect of the Titans and Mario does lack of success when you combine pretty lackluster metrics with the fact that his overall arm and pocket presence has improved little if at all since the sparks shown in his debut game it's not hard to see why Tennessee is now standing at a crossroads so what do they do I mean even with the struggles that led to his demotion in the 2019 season at least among Titans fans this seems to be a pretty difficult split issue and I get that there's been magical moments there's been times that Mario does felt like the future of not just the Titans but the NFL the faults obviously aren't all on Mariota the Titans as an organization have failed him at just about every turn but what often sets apart generational talents like Mariota was chalked up to be is their ability to overcome those shortcomings in their situation and on that front I'm not sure that we've seen anything to suggest that's who Mariota is Mariota came into the league at a turning point for the inclusion of a lot of aspects of the college game we see it now more than ever with the Andy Reid coaching tree new chances taking on coaches like Kliff Kingsbury hell even Chip Kelly nearly traded the farm to move up and take Mariota for the Eagles at the time of the 2015 draft but instead he was drafted by the Titans to prove himself as a pocket passer in a regime that didn't necessarily embrace all aspects of his game and what it would take to translate them to the NFL level and in the end I think that prevented him from becoming something truly special in this league as for what the future holds it's really anyone's guess maybe he stays in Tennessee next year maybe he doesn't but at this stage of the game with him headed to year six in 2020 he looks to either be a low tier starter for a desperate franchise or one of the league's best backups and for all we know right now the right coach could get their hands on him and completely revitalize his career although there's not a clear path as to where or how that would even take place so if you ask me about Marcus Mariota and his quick fall from grace into quarterback purgatory and now watching from the sidelines it's just kind of sad he seems like an incredible genuine hard-working guy who wasn't able to be a savior for a broken organization and now looks to be the first to fall from what has turned out to be quite the roller coaster ride for the top two picks in the 2015 NFL Draft but that doesn't mean we haven't seen players turn their careers upside down completely and find success after making the switch to a new franchise even when all hope seems lost so in the end a change of scenery might end up being bittersweet but it's looking more and more like that could be what Marcus mariota's career really depends on

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 1,096,530

Rating: 4.861804 out of 5

Keywords: marcus mariota, what happened to marcus mariota?, marcus mariota benched, why was mariota benched, marcus mariota highlights, marcus mariota oregon, marcus mariota 2019 highlights, marcus mariota rookie highlights, set the edge, set the edge marcus mariota, tennessee titans, ryan tannehill, why marcus mariota was benched, why marcus mariota failed in the nfl, tennessee titans highlights, marcus mariota micd up, mariota highlights, marcus mariota (athlete)

Id: AZcprypiFks

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/GoodMorningSpliff]

I want to believe his career isn’t over and he gets a second opportunity with a good team. Or at the very least a good offensive line and good coaching/front office

[u/MusicCityMariota]

Goodnight, sweet Pineapple Prince. 😞

[u/Sosaonthabeat]

Dude went to the titans...

[u/Mantisootheca]

Injuries, completely different offense to the one he ran at Oregon, constant coaching turnover. Regular titans stuff

[u/FxDriver]

Long story short both failed each other.

Titans failed: Setting Marcus up with a consistent structure built around his skill set.

Marcus failed: Never corrected any of his weaknesses from Oregon. Inconsistent and often injured. The polar opposite of Jameis Winston in that Marcus is very risk averse which leads to him missing easy throws and taking sacks no quarterbacks at this level should take.

Can Marcus Mariota be fixed: Maybe maybe not.

[u/WatermelonBandido]

Exotic smashmouth?

[u/air_volek07]

I love you Marcus

[u/ironspyder750]

Injuries, man.

[u/[deleted]]

I hope he lands on a team that will design a playbook he can execute, as opposed to wasting his career trying to do things he can't.