One of Marcus Mariota’s greatest strengths during his days in college at Oregon was his ability to run the ball. Mariota rushed for over 700 yards in each of his three seasons as a starting QB for the Ducks, to go along with 29 scores. Mariota also posted astronomical passing stats and incredible touchdown-to-interception ratio. But through three games as the starting quarterback for the Tennessee Titans, Mariota has hardly shown what he can do with his legs.
Mariota has run the ball just five times for 25 yards for Tennessee. He has averaged 29 pass attempts per game instead and seems to be content developing as a pocket passer. It seems like that’s what Tennessee likes, too.
Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said Monday he is “torn” about having Mariota run.
“I’m kind of torn with that,” Whisenthunt said Monday via ESPN’s Paul Kuharsky. “I mean, he’s doing a pretty good job of throwing the football in the pocket and making some plays. … I really think that that is going to come at some point. I don’t think that we’re going to try to force it. I think he’s doing a really nice job of making some plays in the pocket and we’re going to make some plays going forward. We’ve talked about it though.”
Whisenhunt is right; Mariota is already doing a good job focusing as a passer. He posted his first career 300-yard game (367 yards to be exact) in Week 3 even though his team blew a big lead to the Colts. He already has eight touchdown passes and is on pace to shatter the rookie passing touchdown record shared by Russell Wilson and Peyton Manning at 26. When he unleashes that aspect of his game, he will be unstoppable. Of course, we know that he is not focusing on his statistics, except for the one that counts — wins.
