Marcus Mariota’s day off
Marcus Mariota had a day off today and deserved it after a good training camp to this point and a good scrimmage on Saturday.
Today’s practice was situational and with no pads, so there wasn’t just a ton that he needed to do with the ball in his hand that he couldn’t do on the sideline talking to the coach.
Another big part of the reason Mariota got the day off was that it was an install day for the offense as well and Vrabel said that he felt “comfortable” with where Mariota was in what was being installed today for the offense.
The more we see from these maintenance days the more it becomes obvious what the strategy is.
-Are you a good player: If yes, take a day off intermittently
– Are you even a slight injury risk? If yes, go to next question.
–Are you a lock for the roster? If yes, take at least half a day off. If no, it is up to the discretion of the trainer.
More rest should mean better practices and better games for the players that get those rests, so it just makes sense to be conservative. At the very least take it slow until you get at least a couple of preseason games under your belt.
Vrabel said that Mariota was 100% fine, so all is well and (to the 1% of you that this applies to) please don’t try to make this about Ryan Tannehill getting starter reps or anything like that.