Greg Cosell’s Week 1 analysis: Inside Marcus Mariota’s great debut

Marcus Mariota’s great debut was a convergence of coaching that put him in positions to succeed, and Mariota’s skillfully executing the plays.

Tennessee Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt and his staff did an outstanding job with their rookie quarterback. There were a lot of quick drops and defined throws. They had excellent concepts, especially in the red zone, to get receivers open. But a great plan doesn’t work if the quarterback can’t execute, and Mariota was decisive and accurate, making tight throws into small windows. He was impressive. Mariota was particularly outstanding from the shotgun, which was a staple for him at Oregon. He went 10-of-10 for 176 yards and two touchdowns from the shotgun.

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Let’s look at a few plays that really stood out to me on the game tape from Mariota’s debut.

On the Titans’ second possession, the play was designed to go to Kendall Wright. Wright came in motion, which helped confirm that the Buccaneers were in man-free coverage. Wright slipped and his route was not defined anymore within the timing of the drop. But Mariota did an outstanding job coming off Wright and hitting Harry Douglas for a 20-yard gain. He hit Douglas with precise ball placement with the pocket closing down. It was a telling play for a young quarterback.

One thing that really stands out about Mariota, which we saw on the previous play, is ball placement. He also really has a great ability to snap throws to the short and intermediate levels without having to stride. At times he has a little Dan Marino to his delivery; it’s very compact and quick.

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It’s not just that Mariota throws accurately, but he showed a sense of how and where to throw certain passes. This 14-yard pass in the third quarter stood out to me. It doesn’t look like it’s very accurate on first glance as the receiver has to catch it behind him, but you can clearly see on the tape that Mariota had to throw it away from the underneath defender, linebacker Lavonte David. He threw it where he had to, in order to complete the pass. When you see it on the coaches film, it’s clear this pass was really well placed.

We all know Mariota can throw on the move, and he showed great composure and poise on this third quarter play. The play was meant to go to fullback Jalston Fowler in the flat off the bootleg action, but David took that away. So Mariota eliminated that, kept rolling out with his eyes downfield, and made a beautiful throw on the move to Delanie Walker on a crossing route.

The numbers showed this was a really good debut for Mariota, the second pick of this year’s draft. The game film confirmed it — Mariota did a lot of things very well, especially for a rookie quarterback in his first game.

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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.