NFL1000 Scouting Notebook: Has Marcus Mariota Officially Arrived?

Welcome to Bleacher Report’s NFL1000 Scouting Notebook, a weekly series where we’ll use the power of the 16-man NFL1000 scouting department to bring you fresh insights into the league and explain some of the more interesting (and potentially controversial) grades we give players every week.  

The full list of NFL1000 grades will be released Thursday, and we will attempt to preview some of what we are seeing in our film analysis here. 

We will look at Ndamukong Suh’s recent dominance and Justin Tucker’s huge week, and scouts will answer questions on this week’s hot topics. But first, let’s start out with some film analysis of Marcus Mariota’s recent string of impressive performances.

   

The All-22: Has Marcus Mariota Officially Arrived?

Written by Cian Fahey

Marcus Mariota struggled early on this season. He wasn’t fitting the ball into tighter windows and pushing the ball downfield the way head coach Mike Mularkey’s offense required him to. The second-year quarterback hadn’t proved that he was a capable deep passer during his rookie season or during his days in college. He had proved that he could throw intermediate and short passes with precision, but vertical routes that pushed farther than 20 yards downfield were problematic.

Over recent weeks, Mariota has emulated the great Marreese Speights by extending his range. Unlike Mo Buckets, Mariota isn’t just a role player. Adding this deep passing element to his game could push Mariota into the top tier of NFL quarterbacks.

Against the Chicago Bears this past weekend, Mariota showcased his renewed ability to push the ball downfield on a couple of occasions. In the above image, you can see the Tennessee Titans are facing a third-down situation with two receivers, one tight end and two running backs on the field. The Bears are sitting deep with their secondary, anticipating a shot-play design because of the two backs in the backfield and the down and distance.

The Titans like to use seven-man protections to push the ball downfield. Tajae Sharpe scored a touchdown against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 11 on a play of this kind.

With just three receivers releasing downfield, the Titans are running a play that the Bears were anticipating. Mariota has time and space in the pocket because of the extra protection. He uses that time to manipulate the right-side deep safety. Mariota trains his eyes on that safety and uses his stare to push him wider to that side of the field. What Mariota is doing is creating an opening between the two safeties whom he knows he can come back to.

Rishard Matthews is running a post route from the opposite side of the field. Mariota has to time his actions in the pocket so that they sync with the breaks of Matthews’ route.

It’s not just that Mariota splits the two safeties to get the ball to Matthews in the end zone. He purposely pushes the ball deeper into the end zone so Matthews is led away from the recovering safety and toward space. It makes Matthews’ reception slightly tougher, but it also assures him of getting an uncontested opportunity to pull the ball in.

This ability to lead receivers to space is something that Mariota has always had on shorter routes. It’s obviously much tougher to do when pushing the ball 30 or 40 yards downfield, but the same principles are there, so the ability can translate. What makes this play more notable is the type of route that Mariota threw to and where it was on the field. He essentially threw the ball vertically, meaning he didn’t have an angle to work with when trying to measure his accuracy.

Hitting vertical routes rather than hitting deep routes has been Mariota’s real issue. He can hit deep crossing routes and lead his tight ends to space down the seam when he has a clear angle to work with. When he’s throwing between the hashmarks or throwing to a receiver who is running vertically down either sideline, he has struggled.

Later in the game against the Bears, the Titans came out with five receivers spread wide. Harry Douglas is lined up in the slot to the top of the screen. He is going to run a sideline route from the slot. Douglas runs that route from the slot so he has more room to run into, and the cornerback can’t squeeze him out over the sideline.

Even with that space, Douglas is still small and slow. He doesn’t offer his quarterback any margin for error at the catch point or any separation through his route.

Mariota fits the ball over the defensive back and into Douglas’ waiting hands. He hits his receiver in stride without giving the defender, who is in perfect coverage, any opportunity to impact the flight of the ball. That is a difficult throw to make, and Mariota made it look as easy as anyone could.

Neither the Green Bay Packers nor Jacksonville Jaguars offered up much resistance to Mariota when he pushed the ball downfield. He was completing passes against those defenders, but they were relatively easy completions. That can’t be said about what he did in this game. Many of the throws Mariota made were of a high degree of difficulty and showcased his potential to become a truly special player.

    

Is Ndamukong Suh Back to Being One of the NFL’s Most Feared Defenders?

Written by Charles McDonald

Ndamukong Suh’s career with the Miami Dolphins started off a little slowly in 2015, but he’s been on a tear this season, consistently wreaking havoc on opposing offensive lines. That trend continued against the San Francisco 49ers, where he was mainly matched up against rookie Joshua Garnett. Garnett played fairly well versus Suh, but it’s impossible to shut down a player of Suh’s caliber for a full game.

Suh has arguably the most devastating bull rush in the league. He’s an elite athlete for his size and routinely explodes through interior offensive linemen on his way to the quarterback. 

Share Tweet

Interior defensive linemen have two reads they need to make on every play. They have to read …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com