What does Washington have in Marcus Mariota?
March 25, 2024
by Steve Thomas
With the recent trade of former starter Sam Howell, Washington’s leadership all but confirmed that they will use their second overall pick on a quarterback to help usher in this new era of Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington football. To aid in the transition, though, they brought in Marcus Mariota with a $6M cap hit. That isn’t a huge number, but it also isn’t a veteran’s minimum number either. That made me wonder if Adam Peters, Dan Quinn, and company intend to let Mariota play a little bit to start the season, irrespective of who they draft. If so, can Mariota still play? What do they have in this guy, anyway?
Mariota, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, was a standout sprinter in high school, winning multiple awards in addition to his football accolades. He attended the University of Oregon from 2011 – 2014, although he redshirted his freshman year. Between 2012 and 2014, he played a total of 41 games, with 779 completions in 1167 attempts, for a 66.8% completion percentage, 10796 yards, 105 touchdowns, and 14 interceptions. He also had 337 carries for 2237 yards, 6.6 yards per carry, and 29 touchdowns. Mariota won essentially every major award in the country as a result of his 2014 season. That year, he played 15 games, with 304 completions in 445 attempts, for a 68.3% completion percentage, 4454 yards, 42 touchdowns, and 4 interceptions, plus 135 rushing attempts for 770 yards, 5.7 yards per carry, and 15 touchdowns. Oregon played in the national championship game that season, losing to Ohio St.; however, Mariota won the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, the Walter Camp Award, the Manning Award, the Davey O’Brien Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the AP College Football Player of the Year Award, and was a Unanimous All-American.
He ran the 40 yard dash in 4.52 seconds at the NFL Combine, a mark which highlighted the speed he showed in both high school at college.
Mariota was drafted second overall by the Tennessee Titans in the 2015 draft, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers going with Florida St. quarterback Jameis Winston. Interestingly, only 7 quarterbacks were selected that year, including Mariota, with none of them ultimately becoming franchise-caliber players[1]. Mariota spent 5 years with Tennessee, but they ultimately benched him in favor of the mediocre Ryan Tannehill in week 6 in 2019. He was average at best for the Titans, playing a total of 63 games, with 61 starts, with 1110 completions in 1765 attempts, for a 62.9% completion percentage, 13,207 yards 76 touchdowns, 44 interceptions, and an 89.6 quarterback rating. His best season was 2016, during which he only went 276 for 451, which was a 61.2% completion percentage, but had 26 touchdowns and 9 interceptions, which equated to a 95.6 quarterback rating. By Washington quarterback standards, a 95.6 quarterback rating would be very good; however, at the end of the day, the Titans never got above 9 – 7 with Mariota at the helm, with just one playoff appearance, coming in 2017. The Titans actually reached the AFC Championship game in 2019, but with Tannehill as the starter.
Tennessee let Mariota walk in the offseason, and he signed with the Raiders in 2020, where he backed up Derek Carr through 2021, with no starts and only 30 pass attempts. He then signed a 2 year, $18.75M contract with the Falcons for the 2022 and 2023 seasons as veteran competition to 2022 third round pick Desmond Ridder. Mariota beat out Ridder to start the season, but was eventually benched in week 15 in favor of Ridder, then released in the offseason. The Eagles signed him to a one year deal last year as a backup to Jalen Hurts. He only had 3 appearances for Philadelphia, going 15 for 23 for 164 yards, a 65.4 completion percentage, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception.
In his NFL career, he has a total of 1327 completions in 2118 attempts, for 62.7% completion percentage, 15820 yards, 93 touchdowns, 55 interceptions, and a 89.2 quarterback rating. His collegiate rushing success never really materialized in the NFL to any great extent; in his career, he has 357 carries for 2064 yards, for 4.0 yards per carry, and 17 touchdowns.
There’s nothing in Mariota’s professional background to suggest that’s he’s going to all of a sudden morph into a plus-level starter here in Washington. First, he’s spent the majority of his career in the west coast system. Head coach Dan Quinn hasn’t announced what kind of offense he and offensive coordinator are going to run yet, but Quinn was coaching the Air Coryell system in Dallas and Kingsbury, somewhat infamously, ran a spread offense in one stop as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. While college Marcus Mariota may have seemed well suited to the spread, that hasn’t been the case in the NFL. More importantly, though, Mariota’s completion percentage has been merely midrange for his entire career, and now his interception percentage has been sneaking up higher, 3.0% for the 2022 season. That number was ranked 18th of the 20 quarterbacks who started at least 13 games that season.
The last time he played with regularity, Mariota did show some quality play at times. He was fairly accurate deep and used his eyes to his advantage, freezing coverages and causing some of his receivers to become open when they probably shouldn’t have been. He’s also not afraid to throw into tight windows. Despite his fairly high sack percentage that year, 8.54%, he has the ability to move around the pocket to his advantage in order to evade the pass rush. For those who are interested, NFL film analyst Cian Fahey did an insightful breakdown of Mariota’s first four games that season that describes many different aspects of his game.
Mariota is a professional, and while Washington shouldn’t, and won’t, build an offense around him. That having been said, he can probably come in when called upon and run Washington’s offense in a manner approaching average; however, it’s highly unlikely that Washington will be able to reserve the tide of history and turn him into franchise quarterback after several seasons in which his game didn’t develop and succeed at that level. Despite that, Mariota is intelligent and will likely make a decent mentor for Washington’s incoming rookie quarterback. I anticipate that that will be his role in DC rather than starting, even at the beginning of the season. I’m definitely on team “let the rookie quarterback sit for awhile”, especially given how many young quarterbacks Washington’s various coaching staffs have utterly destroyed over the years, but playing seems unlikely given Mariota’s recent history.
Mariota himself implicitly acknowledged in his introductory press conference earlier this month that his role in Washington may be that of veteran mentor, stating , “I bring alot of value in alot of different aspects. If I’m called upon to be ready to play, I’m very confident in that and I’m also very confident in my role as a mentor. Whatever this staff [and] whatever this team needs of me, I’m going to do it to the best of my abilities and ultimately try to win games here.”
What do you think Mariota’s role in DC will be?
[1] In addition to Winston and Mariota, selectees included Garrett Grayson (rd 3/Saints), Sean Mannion (rd 3/Rams), Bryce Petty (rd 4/Jets), Brett Hundley (rd 5/Packers), Trevor Siemian (rd 7/Broncos). Of those, ironically, only Siemian got significant playing time, with 33 starts between 2015 and 2023, although he remains unsigned for 2024. Grayson, Mannion, and Petty are all out of the NFL.