Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota was quite the accurate passer when under pressure last season.
While Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota’s overall completion percentage (68.9) in 2018 was good enough for No. 6 in the league and was the best of his young career, the 25-year-old was even better under pressure.
According to Pro Football Focus, Mariota was completing passes at a 72.5-percent clip, which ranked him fourth among all NFL quarterbacks.
Marcus Mariota’s Adjusted Completion Percentage was 72.5 when under pressure, good for 4th in the league.#TitanUp pic.twitter.com/lnrpddAyU0
— PFF TEN Titans (@PFF_Titans) June 13, 2019
So, what can we learn from this? Perhaps the Titans’ offensive line should let a few extra defenders through over the course of a game.
Just kidding, of course.
But the stat does say a lot about Mariota’s ability to make decisions and execute under pressure. And, with the way the Titans’ offensive line played last season, Mariota had to adjust and did so impressively.
As his career has gone on Mariota has improved on his overall accuracy in almost every season. After completing 62.2 percent of his throws in his rookie year, Mariota took a small step back to 61.2 percent in his sophomore campaign.
Since then, the Oregon product has improved his completion rate in each of the last two seasons, with a nearly seven percent improvement from his third to fourth. Most importantly, he’s been able to keep his interceptions down, as the eight he tossed in 2018 were the fewest of his career.
It’s reasonable to expect that Mariota, who is in a contract year in 2019, could complete 70 percent or more of his passes. That’s especially true when you consider that the Titans’ offensive line should be improved from a year ago with the moves they’ve made this offseason.
If not, Mariota will have to do what he did last season—evaluate the pressure and complete the pass at an elite rate.