Very good Mariota Article

[Face]

 

 

 

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​Errr ... they lost before Metenberger was hurt. If you want to touch on the moment when "tanking" began is when they opted for Mett to "see what he has."

That's not to say that Mett was a bad QB ... it's just that they likely called plays and called a game to "see what he has." Instead of going ultra conservative.

I think Wiz just named Jake the backup to not embarrass him, it would've been a real kick in the nuts to demote him to 3rd string, even though he should've been. By the time Mett got hurt the whole team was so decimated with injuries that it didn't matter who played.

I don't think they tanked but I absolutely think they should have. Not tanking is utterly retarded when you're in the position the Titans are. If they really thought that Winston & Mariota were that good it would be borderline criminal to lose out on them to win a fucking game against the Jags. Seriously, teams like the Eagles were making massive offers to get Mariota & we wouldn't even consider it but we wouldn't throw a game to the Jets or Jags?

A bunch of my Jet fan friends are still furious that they beat us at the end of the year, they would've gotten Mariota.

BTW Big I didn't mean to quote you here, I just have no idea what's going on with this new format. I'm just quoting people randomly.

[Face]

​I absolutely think they wanted to not throw Locker under the bus. It's the same reason Locker was the back-up over Whitehurst

I doubt Whiz thought Locker was the best QB entering training camp

 

​I firmly believe Wiz knew Locker was terrible & wanted to be done with him as soon as humanly possible but he knew he had to go thru the motions with him as the starter. I questioned last year why he didn't do more to help Locker, like bootlegs, QB runs, simpler offense, etc but I think he knew he was terrible & the team wasn't going anywhere until he was out of the picture so he just asked him to run the offense in full, and he was completely exposed.

I argued a bit about this last year with you, Oldschool, Scine, and a few others that Wiz should've dumbed the offense down & let Locker run more. I was wrong, Whisenhunt played it exactly right, he let Locker sink or swim.

[Cyrus]

My biggest takeaway from this article is that Marv Sunderland and the other area scout have essentially been scouting Mariota for two years and graded him as the best player in the draft. I'm not so sure they take Winston if they drafted first overall. I realize these are west coast scouts so they haven't extensively scouted Winston, but this team has consistently favored the PAC-12 over the years for good or bad.

[MIKE75]

​I'd say with a healthy Mettenberger in the lineup for 16 games they'd have gone 6-10, maybe even 7-9.

The games lost to the bad teams were all when Mettenberger was out of the lineup. I think they'd have swept Jacksonville, beaten the Redskins, Browns, Chiefs, Jets and maybe Cowboys.

​I'm gonna be honest i'll always wonder what might've been had they maybe drafted Leonard Williams instead of Mariota and basically afterward drafted the same players. Mett with Green Beckham and the other WR's would've been lethal throwing the ball. With a better line and running game with Cobb and Fowler i think the offense would've improved drastically. Add L. Williams to the defense we have now i think things would've improved there as well. I'm cool with Mariota and i'm behind the pick but i hope he plays well enough that we don't look back and wonder what if......

[BaddKarma]

The guy's second read comp% is like 58ish%. He will not have the hurry-up tempo, a huge rushing game, or third rate DBs to throw at. This guy is a WIP as far as a day one starter and the Titans have their work cut out to prep this kid for a decent first/rookie season (4-12). This is WIZ's project and could be Locker 2.0...

[begooode]

​Players don't "tank." They were trying to win both of those games. Just like the Bucs players were trying to win the Saints game. Many of them wouldn't even be around for 2015 they couldn't have cared less about what happened in the draft.  They were playing for their careers.

The tanking happens when the coaches don't put the best players on the field.

Tanking 101 from 10 yrs ago:

​Tennessee looked like they just wanted this season to end sooner rather than later. Looking dead most of the game, they avoided the worst loss in franchise history when Billy Volek hit Bo Scaife with a tipped 10 yard touchdown pass. Volek replaced Matt Mauck at half time. Mauck started in place of Steve McNair who had a strained right pectoral muscle.

http://www.realfootball365.com/articles/nfl/2131

[Face]

​Not sure I think that's the case. I honestly think they probably wanted Winston when the season ended. It seems like they didn't really want Mariota until March and then Mariota was the #1 target.

Whatever the case is they were completely done with Locker probably the day Whisenhunt took the job and they also weren't enamored with any of the QB's last year (except for maybe Bortles). I also think you and I probably overestimated Whisenhunt's love for Mettenberger.

It's impossible to know the answer to this but I think we would've taken Mariota over Winston. Besides the off field stuff I think Winston took too many risks & tried to make too many big plays, Mariota runs the system exactly as designed & basically never throws picks. This is exactly what Wiz wants.

[MIKE75]

The guy's second read comp% is like 58ish%. He will not have the hurry-up tempo, a huge rushing game, or third rate DBs to throw at. This guy is a WIP as far as a day one starter and the Titans have their work cut out to prep this kid for a decent first/rookie season (4-12). This is WIZ's project and could be Locker 2.0...

​Please don't say that,lol. Locker is the worst thing any QB can be compared to. Mariota played tremendously better than Locker in college and Locker is not even good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Mariota. After all Mariota was like 35-4 overall record and had 105TD,14INT and 67 percent completion percentage along with winning a Heisman trophy and going to championship games.  Locker was 11-25 including an 0-9 season threw for 53TD,35INT and barely had 53 percent of his passes completed. To this day WTF? did these idiots running this team see in the guy?

[Mythos27]

​Please don't say that,lol. Locker is the worst thing any QB can be compared to. Mariota played tremendously better than Locker in college and Locker is not even good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Mariota. After all Mariota was like 35-4 overall record and had 105TD,14INT and 67 percent completion percentage along with winning a Heisman trophy and going to championship games.  Locker was 11-25 including an 0-9 season threw for 53TD,35INT and barely had 53 percent of his passes completed. To this day WTF? did these idiots running this team see in the guy?

​Locker even played in a pro style offense in college. Mariota tea bags Jake.He'd feel really bad about it afterwards though.

[Titans279]

At the time the narrative was that Washington had become a dumpster fire so the results/stats weren't all his fault. To an extent that's true. I think other than Locker they only had one other offensive player drafted (an OT I think) from teams he was on. Still, it was seen as a reach by pretty much everyone to take him where we did, but the alternative was Ponder or Gabbert. Ideally I guess you take Watt and Dalton in the second, but that's hindsight for you.

[big2033]

​Yes. Because those games were all near wins or even wins with lesser QB's.

​This is where the Mett love gets REALLY murky. The other QBs were lesser in skills yes ... lesser in managing a game? You can't say that because Mett didn't prove he had the ability to do that.

[scine09]

​This is where the Mett love gets REALLY murky. The other QBs were lesser in skills yes ... lesser in managing a game? You can't say that because Mett didn't prove he had the ability to do that.

​Locker was terrible in managing a game. I like Whitehurst but there's no doubt, even as experienced as he is, that he couldn't hold a candle to Mettenberger.

Think about the Dallas game for a second. How many easy throws did Locker miss that day? Whitehurst and Mettenberger both make those throws in their sleep. I feel like Whitehurst basically maxed out last year. 

[Mythos27]

​This is where the Mett love gets REALLY murky. The other QBs were lesser in skills yes ... lesser in managing a game? You can't say that because Mett didn't prove he had the ability to do that.

​It's a tough conversation because you can't have it without hypothetical arguments on both sides and as a community we can't even agree on how good or bad Mett was in the 1st place so we just all end up yelling at each other. It's much easier to just get behind Mariota since most at least have a baseline level of like/respect for him as a prospect. Hopefully he plays well so he doesn't become the next lightning rod.

[MIKE75]

​This is where the Mett love gets REALLY murky. The other QBs were lesser in skills yes ... lesser in managing a game? You can't say that because Mett didn't prove he had the ability to do that.

​Mett was better than Locker and Whitehurst. If Mett were in those games especially the 19-17 two point loss to Washington,29-28 loss to Cleveland,16-11 loss to NY Jets and 21-13 loss to the Jags there is a rally good chance he wins some of those games and throw in Dallas as well as Locker was terrible. Mett was always good for a few big plays in the games he did play in as well as completing a decent percentage of his passes. In the 43-24 loss at Philly one of the first plays Walker dropped a 30 yard completion. Mett ended up throwing for 350 yards in that game. That game also started out with a 104 yard return on the opening kickoff so a lot of these losses where poor special teams and bad defense as well. At Houston before getting hurt by Watt he completed 13 of 19 passes his completed percentage near seventy percent averaging ten yards a pass. Mett was getting better game by game no doubt and with a better more complete team around the guy he is gonna be quite good i'll bet the house on it.

[Face]

​Locker was terrible in managing a game. I like Whitehurst but there's no doubt, even as experienced as he is, that he couldn't hold a candle to Mettenberger.

Think about the Dallas game for a second. How many easy throws did Locker miss that day? Whitehurst and Mettenberger both make those throws in their sleep. I feel like Whitehurst basically maxed out last year. 

The team was so bad after Mett's first 2 starts, the OL & WR's were just decimated & the D was beat up as well. As bad as it is, the team was actually much worse at the end of the year. Locker was horrific when he took over for Mett, just brutal. I absolutely think Mett wins a few games had he played from the get. Maybe not 6, but more than we had for sure.