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Marcus Mariota is already an elite QB

By Will Lomas

May 16, 2017; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota (8) cheers as members of his offensive line drink a beer to get the crowd cheering before game three of the Western Conference Final of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Anaheim Ducks at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
May 16, 2017; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota (8) cheers as members of his offensive line drink a beer to get the crowd cheering before game three of the Western Conference Final of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Anaheim Ducks at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports /
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Even more analytics to show just how great Marcus Mariota already is.

The Tennessee Titans may be one of the most fortunate teams in recent history. Honestly, how often does the number two overall pick pan out in the draft?

Look at the last five years worth of players drafted second, and how their careers have turned out:

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2012: Robert Griffin III: Great start, then dropped off of a cliff and was let go to become a backup.

2013: Luke Joeckel: Let go from Jacksonville (a team with one of the worst OLs in the NFL) and signed a one year deal with Seattle.

2014: Greg Robinson: Traded today for a conditional 6th round pick in 2018 because he wasn’t going to make the L.A. Rams. For context, the Rams allowed the 2nd most sacks in the NFL last year.

2015: Marcus Mariota

2016: Carson Wentz: Off to a pretty good start, though people are way to high on him based on how he ended the season.

So in any other year there is a good chance that those players would have been on the Tennessee Titans roster.

Instead, the Titans picked the perfect year to get the 2nd overall pick and landed a franchise quarterback.

You may have read before how I believe that one of the best ways to measure how good a quarterback is regardless of system is to look at a few key stats. Things like yards per completion, TD %, completion percentage, and interception percentage are all great representations of that.

Think about it, this is what each stat represents.

Yards per completion

This combined with completion percentage shows how well a QB can throw the ball at every level. It helps you see through the QBs who live off of screen passes and check downs.

Quarterbacks who get the bulk of their pass yardage through dinking and dunking tend to be guys on the lower ending of this stat. They also tend to be worse quarterbacks.

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    • TD %

    This is easy. How many times did your quarterback attempt a pass? How many times was it completed for a TD? That is TD %.

    It is sort of the perfect stat to show how effective a QB really is at finishing drives himself.

    Completion %

    This is another way to separate inaccurate QBs who rely on deep ball plays and volume to end up with big stats.

    Interception %

    How many times did your quarterback attempt a pass? How many times was it intercepted? That is interception %.

    A great way of showing which QBs can hurt their team.

    Luckily I am not the only one who thinks like this. Justis Mosqueda (who has a great podcast: Setting the Edge) put together a ranking of all the QBs in the NFL based on these stats.

    Take a look:

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    Mariota comes out 5th best QB in the NFL according to the combination of these four stats.

    That is a head of every QB in the AFC South, and in fact ahead of every QB in the AFC other than Tom Brady.

    It also puts him ahead of draft classmate Jameis Winston, which is the correct take.

    It is a great read and you should look at all of these players and see exactly why it makes sense to think that Marcus Mariota is already playing at a high level despite some issues with talent of the last few years.

    With Rishard Matthews, Corey Davis, Taywan Taylor, Tajae Sharpe, and possibly Eric Decker all at wide receiver this year the Tennessee Titans could be in for a huge season.

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