Aloha can either mean “hello” or “goodbye” depending on the context in which it’s said. This headline is meant to say goodbye. How’s that for some clickbait. The theory below outlines and explains all that has happened in the Titan’s signal caller’s career so far and reasons that could contribute to him leaving after the 2019 season. This article is not for the faint of heart, but for those who want to know the cold, hard truth. Hopefully it will give you some new thoughts and ideas on the future of the Titans.
Let me be the first to say that I love Marcus Mariota. Ever since the Titans drafted him #2 overall in the 2015 draft, I always felt he was going to be the guy to turn the franchise around. He would be the next Steve McNair that would make the Titans a threat in the AFC again, and I still believe this to be true. After his first two years in the league, this feeling seemed like it was primed to come into fruition. The Hawaiian had compiled over 5,000 yards in the air and had 37:19 touchdown to interception ratio as well as rushing for over 500 yards and providing countless highlights. What seemed so promising about this young Nashville star was that he had yet to play in a full season. People assumed he would finally get a healthy year and be able to put up gaudy numbers with a full 16 game season.
Going into his third year, Mariota was being hailed a dark horse MVP candidate and rightfully so. He could run, he was accurate, he was exciting, he was loved by his teammates, and no one could find a blemish in his character. He was about to be the next big thing as a wave of youth at the QB position was taking over. 2017 was supposed to be the year for the Heisman winning QB to jump onto the national stage with his play. None of that happened. Marcus looked timid in the pocket. He wouldn’t step into his throws and seemed to have lost velocity and accuracy. Drives would be stalled and no rhythm could be established because of a bad throw by Mariota. Injuries started to creep into his career again. It seemed apparent that he was not yet fully comfortable with his new leg (he broke his leg in week 17 of the 2016 season) and he hurt a hamstring in week 4 against the Houston Texans. After that, Marcus looked like he was playing on one leg (Aaron Rodgers makes that look so easy). There was very limited movement inside and outside of the pocket. The offense looked slow, awkward, and out of sync and the third-year signal caller was not helping the cause. He threw for only 3,232 yards and had 62% completion percentage. Probably the hardest stat to sallow was the 13:15 touchdown to interception ratio. And yes, you read that right, he threw two more interceptions than touchdowns. Despite all that the Titans, as well as Mariota, played with a lot of guts throughout the season and scrapped together a playoff berth after the most boring, epic game against the Jaguars. Marcus seemed to be getting back on track that week. While he didn’t light up the stat sheet, he made the plays that were necessary to win the game. It looked like the Marcus Mariota that we all knew and loved was finally back. He even willed the Titans to their first playoff win since 2004 before being overwhelmed by the Patriots, but what team in the AFC isn’t overwhelmed by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Despite the positive ending to the season, Marcus’s 2017 campaign was disappointing. In a season where he was supposed to make the leap into the NFL’s elite, he not only failed to do that but gave us more questions than answers.
Now there are plenty of reasons why Marcus took a step back in 2017 that have been clearly stated by others before. Mike Mularkey’s 1990 offense no longer works in the modern-day NFL and it was probably the worst fit for Mariota’s skillset even though he had success with it in 2016. Secondly, there were not enough capable skill players for Mariota to throw to outside of Delanie Walker and Rishard Matthews. Finally, there was the injury situation. He obviously wasn’t himself because of the injuries. All those reasons are a moot point this season. Mike Mularkey’s outdated system has been replaced by the lite version of the Rams’ offense with Matt LaFleur. Corey Davis and Taywan Taylor should take a big leap after having a year of experience under their belt so Marcus should have two more exciting options to throw to. The injury bug finally let Mariota have a full offseason to work on his craft. So, all of the excuses are gone right? Marcus and the Titans should be firing on all cylinders. I get it, last year we were all a little premature on our predictions for MVP’s and Super Bowl’s, but this is the year now. No more excuses. The Titans signal caller is going to make the leap into the NFL’s elite… or at least the NFL’s good.
What if he doesn’t though? What if Marcus has another underwhelming year full of disappointment and frustrations? That would be two bad years in a row compared to two pretty good seasons for a freshman and sophomore campaign. Now I don’t believe that this will happen. I think Mariota will get back on track and will at least be a good NFL QB if not better, but it’s time for Titans fans to start preparing for all outcomes. Now, Jon Robinson and the rest of the Tennessee brass have not given us any reason to believe that Marcus won’t continue to be the franchise QB. They’ve already picked up his 5th year option which will pay him over $20 million, and they continually voice their support for Mariota. Mike Vrabel also has had nothing but positive things to say about the Hawaiian native in his first offseason. So then, why am I even considering that the Titans won’t bring back their most successful QB since Steve McNair after next season?
To begin with, like I said in the paragraph above, what if Mariota’s play doesn’t improve? That would mean he will spend another year in the bottom half of statistics for QB play. That’s not very good for a franchise quarterback. Last season he was in the bottom half of the league in completion percentage, yardage, touchdowns. He was also third in the league with 15 interceptions. Not very inspiring numbers. We’ve already covered the valid excuses for these horrid stats, but you still cannot deny how bad this season was for such a promising young player. There’s good chance Marcus improves from this year, it’d be hard not to, but what if he improves just barely. It wasn’t just the stats that looked bad. Turn on the film and you’ll see countless missed throws due to bad footwork and bad reads. Even the biggest Mariota supporters (I’m one of them) can’t defend him for everything that happened last year. Mariota needs to make a significant jump from 2017 to get back on course.
Secondly, what if Mariota is Jake Locker reincarnated? Obviously, Marcus is a much better QB than Jake Locker, but one of Locker’s biggest flaws was his inability to be available. He never played more than 11 games in a season in his four-year career. This stunted his development and eventually caused the Titans to let him go. Mariota has only missed 6 games in his career so far, but his injuries have affected him while he’s played. As alluded to earlier, the broken leg and hampered hammy obviously stunted his play which hurt the offense dearly. In the first game of the 2018 season against the Dolphins, we saw him missing the majority of the second half of the game because of an elbow injury. Only time will tell if this injury will affect any more games. It has been said before that the most important attribute a player can bring to a team is availability, and Marcus has struggled with that at times. As of right now, his injuries are not enough at all to warrant being let go, but if he has another injury riddled year in 2018 or even 2019 then that could attribute to the let Marcus walk case in the 2019 offseason.
Finally, it comes down to a business decision for Jon Robinson and Amy Adams Strunk. As much as we all love Marcus and even with the success he’s had, if you’re going to pay a guy at least $25 million a year then he needs to be a sure thing and available for a full season. The market for QB’s in the NFL is insane. Each contract keeps topping the last one. Right now, Aaron Rodgers is the highest paid quarterback with a 4-year $134 million contract. Mariota can’t ask for that much money off of his talent, but just because of his age and the timing of the deal he could easily be asking for $25-27 million dollars a year for 4 or 5 years. If you’re going to hitch your wagon to that expensive of a horse, he better be a pretty darn good horse that’s going to win you a lot of games. Right now, I don’t think Mariota has warranted that kind of payday and that’s not a slight on him. Not many people are worth that kind of money, but quarterbacks are so valued in this league it doesn’t matter. It would seem pretty obvious that the Titans will just have to suck it up and give Mariota and his agent the money he wants like almost every other team has done before. Except Jon Robinson is not every other GM. He has no problem cutting ties with a guy if he’s not going to help the team even if it doesn’t go with the status quo. Just last offseason he fired Mike Mularkey, the man who led the Titans to their first playoff win in over a decade, because he saw that that success was not sustainable. Why should we think he wouldn’t do the same to Marcus if he doesn’t improve? It does the team no good if they use up a quarter of their salary to pay an average QB. Also, another food for thought is that Marcus is not Robinson’s or Vrabel’s “guy”. Neither one of them drafted him. In fact, Jon Robinson was a part of the Buccaneers management that drafted Jameis Winston ahead of Mariota in the 2015 draft. I throw that out there to suggest this, neither Robinson or Vrabel have an emotional attachment to Mariota because he’s “their guy” which could make it easier to cut the cord and let him walk in 2019.
Am I looking into all of these reasons a bit too much? Probably so, but the ingredients are there for the Titans to be looking for a new quarterback after the 2019 season. We’ve seen crazier things happen before. The performance, injuries, and money aren’t enough by themselves to justify letting Marcus go in free agency, but all of them combined could prove to be the perfect storm. I don’t want Titans fans to freak out after reading this and think that there is some Belichick-Brady drama going on behind the scenes because there has been no evidence of that happening. This all just a theory. Also, don’t jump off of the Marcus Mariota ship just yet. I still expect him to have a big bounce back year and prove this whole article wrong. It’s just important to be honest with yourself and know all the possible outcomes despite how hard it might be to face the truth. One thing is for sure, by 2019 we’ll be saying Aloha to Marcus Mariota either way.
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