Titans 2019 Revisited: Quarterback

Indeed Mariota struggled, but the surprise of the year was the play of the NFL’s Comeback Player of the year, Pro Bowler, and potential heir to the Titan’s quarterback throne, Ryan Tannehill.

After an improbable run to the AFC Championship Game, the front office and coaching staff are going to have to re-evaluate their 2020 season and beyond.

So how did the Titans get into their current position? Well, I’ll go through how both Titan quarterbacks got here and where they go from here. Until free agency and the draft Tennessee now face their biggest quarterback quandary since their trade of Steve McNair.

Marcus Mariota

The 2015 NFL draft brought some hope for a struggling Titans squad. Tennessee had not been to the playoffs since 2008 and hadn’t won a playoff game since 2003. With the second overall pick and two potential stud quarterbacks on the board, Tampa Bay selected “Famous” Jameis Winston from Florida State number one overall and Tennessee selected Marcus “I don’t think he ever had a nickname” Mariota.

The Heisman Trophy winner from Oregon shined for Tennessee in his first two seasons. Despite a mediocre 2017 he still led the Titans to the playoffs and fans finally felt he had come into his own. But an injury-riddled 2018 gave him an ultimatum for 2019: win or don’t come back.

After starting 2-4 Mariota was benched in this “instant results” era of pro football.

Did Mariota deserve to get the keys to the Titans front door taken away? Let’s pound some stats.

For 2019 Marcus Mariota went 95/160 for 1203 yards and seven touchdowns to two interceptions. His completion percentage was a career-low 59.4 but overall his stats were not to bad. But much like the DeLorean and Katy Perry’s marriage, they look good to the eye but why did they fail.

The biggest critique of Mariota’s pro career has been his killer instinct. The balls and guts to make certain plays; plays that may seem improbable or difficult but separate the cream from the crop. Now let me get this out of the way. The dude has toughness and plays his ass off. I’m not questioning that. I’m bringing up the cold hard facts of his reads and pulling off the proverbial trigger.

In 2019 Mariota passed on third down 60 times and converted 15. That’s only 25%. Mariota went 27/48 passing getting sacked 12 times and throwing a touchdown and an interception. There were many times a better option to throw to and Mariota decided to dump the ball off to the check-down or tried to hit a receiver that was left high-and-dry.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Granted the running game improved along with the play of the offensive line as the season went on but when you have a talented guy under center he’s expected to pick up some of the slack.

I know Marcus Mariota has the same chances of staying in Tennessee as I do dating Aubrey Plaza but I still think he has the talent to play elsewhere and the guy has been a great figure in the Nashville area. Fans do love him and he’ll leave Tennessee with no bad taste left in their mouth (unlike Vince Young and Jake Locker).

Ryan Tannehill

During the October 13th game against Denver head coach, Mike Vrabel pulled the stru-ga-ling Marcus Mariota for backup Ryan Tannehill. Tennessee lost that game 16-0 but it was next week’s win against San Diego Los Angeles that sparked the Tannehill run.

Tannehill was acquired in a trade with Miami in February of 2019 and signed to a one-year deal. Of course, the trade and the benching of Mariota paid off for Tennessee.

In Miami Tannehill had some good numbers in his first four seasons but a lot of the stats were padded with garbage time yards. Injuries hampered his last two seasons and well here we are.

With Tennessee, he had a revival of sorts. He would finish the season with a league-leading 117.5 rating, highest touchdown total since 2016 and a career-high four rushing touchdowns.

Now, why was Tannehill so successful for the Titans? Well like I said earlier the rushing game came on late so the pressure for Tannehill to throw was nil. But wait a minute, I have another stat for you. In his career, he is 9-32 when throwing over 35 attempts in a game. Now again it goes hand in hand with the garbage-time mention. He is not a high attempt quarterback but he’s more than a game manager and that’s fine. It worked for Tennessee.

Let’s put Tannehill through the third-down ringer. Of the 92 throwing attempts on third down, Tannehill went 50/100 and converted 35 of those plays. That’s a much improved 38%. Not only that he threw seven touchdowns on third downs and no picks. His decision making compared to Mariota was no comparison. He made the passes he needed to make and made the runs he had to make. It was like he was playing for a lucrative contract next year.

Most importantly, Tannehill won. I can smash a bunch of stats together and compare and find the square roots or whatever but in the end, he was a winner. They snuck into the playoffs but beat the defending champion Patriots, the MVP Lamar Jackson, and the Ravens and played a tough game against the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

Conclusion

The Tom Brady sweepstakes is going to be the free-agent grab of the year. Fans of teams with questions at quarterback will be putting their Monday-morning GM scenarios on social media. No different are Titans fans. Some would like Brady to take his talents to Nashville and win now. Personally I like the idea of keeping Tannehill, signing another journeyman quarterback and drafting a quarterback.

No matter what Tennessee decides to do they have the young offensive talent and whoever calls the plays next year under center will have plenty of weapons at their disposal.

Follow me on Twitter for more great content @vidal_espinoza.

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