Fantasy Football: Make or break season for 3 quarterbacks

Will Marcus Mariota be Able to Turn it Around?

Marcus Mariota is another quarterback that hasn’t panned out as many have been expecting him to. He’s currently Tennessee’s Week 1 starter, but if his play doesn’t improve quickly, then there could be some drastic moves in the days ahead.

The Titans drafted Mariota as the number two overall pick of the 2015 Draft with the hopes that he will be a generational quarterback for their franchise for years to come. During his time at Oregon, Mariota was extremely impressive as he eclipses 10,000 passing yards for 105 touchdowns and just 14 interceptions.

The Titans believed they invested their number two overall pick wisely, and Mariota was the correct choice. Unfortunately, he is now on the hot-seat and there’s a good chance the team could be ready to move on from him very soon if he doesn’t improve this year.

To put this into perspective a little more clearly, let’s examine the ups and downs of Mariota’s career really quickly.

In his rookie season, Mariota completed about 53% of his passes for over 2,800 yards, 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also had an additional 252 rushing yards as well, giving him some extra value with his running ability.

He ended up finishing 2015 as QB22 and averaged 17.6 fantasy points per game in PPR formats. While these numbers weren’t all too impressive, there was hope that Mariota would develop quickly and become an even more productive play-caller in the near future.

2016 appeared to be his breakout year where he threw 26 touchdowns and only nine interceptions as well as over 3,400 passing yards. He also padded his stats with 349 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns resulting in a QB12 finish to the year.

As expected, misfortune befell Mariota too when he fractured his right fibula on Christmas Eve of that year against the Jacksonville Jaguars. This was the beginning of the downward spiral for Mariota.

Ever since that injury, he hasn’t looked like his 2016-self. He has failed to crack the top-15 in fantasy football the last two years.

This is the year for Mariota and there’s a lot of pressure riding on it. The Titans appear to be more interested in running the ball first with Derrick Henry which is a bad sign for Mariota’s passing game right off the bat. Additionally, the Titans’ receiving corps isn’t all too impressive making Mariota’s chances of having a successful season even less likely. During the last two seasons, Mariota’s supporting cast efficiency ranked 25th and 27th respectively.

Let’s hope for his sake that he can prove me wrong and put together a season similar to what he had in 2016.