Louche
Footballguy
I think Mariota is a fantastic prospect and I think he can transition to the NFL and become a top 10 guy. It's not like he's only been working single reads at Oregon. A big chunk of the offense is quick hitting and less demanding on the QB, and the offense creates wide open receivers so he hasn't had to throw with a lot of anticipation, but he has been going through his third and fourth reads on some plays and with his spacial memory I think he's a great learner. But not all NFL offenses are created the same...Wow. Did not see that. Listening to pat kirwan, jim mills, and others on nfl radio are saying he has not run a pro offense and the right move is to sit him a year.via cstu, Mariota thread:Personally, I don't see Mariota hitting the field right away. So for Hunter, I am more interested in if he's developed any chemistry with Mett. He dropped some easy balls last year and like many of you, I am holding on to him in dynasty, but he needs to do something this year.
Whisenhunt from the press conference:
- Reiterated for the third time to the same reporter that the plan is for Mariota to start week 1
If Mariota plays I don't see how that helps hunter if the qb is learning the offense.
Steve Sarkisian went on a great rant about this on the Rich Eisen show a few weeks ago. NEP, SEA, GBP, all these teams are in the shotgun 75% of the time but then draft prospects come to the NFL combine and are put under center for three hours straight. Then they go to the pro day and try to prove that they are "NFL QBs" with Mariota working the huddle even though he hasn't done that a single time at Oregon. If you draft Mariota and put him under center with two tight ends you're not using him for what he is developed to be. QBs are now developing in the gun since 7th-8th grade and NFL OCs need to adapt and play to the strengths of how QBs are developed through high school and college. And it's not like there is anything wrong with primarily working out of the gun, look at Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Why do we still believe that an NFL ready QB is someone that drops back from center and runs a traditional offense? There are many NFL offenses and offensive coordinators that would fit Mariota perfectly and he can transition quickly to the NFL game, but I don't think Whisenhunt is that guy.
Obviously Mariota has things to work on and it is a huge transition to the NFL game regardless of what type of college offense you come from, but you can either play to his strengths or you can try to force him to be someone that he's never been developed to be. Personally I don't see the fit with Whisenhunt at all. Whiz is known for traditional offenses with huge playbooks which will be an enormous change for Mariota if they don't fit the offense to who Mariota is as of today. They've said that they'll introduce spread elements but I don't know. It feels like they weren't really interested and didn't see Mariota as a great fit for them, but then they didn't get the offer they wanted to trade down and basically settled for Mariota.
And yes, they've come out and said that Mariota is the starter, which seems like a stupid thing to do even if they've decided internally that they want to start Mariota week 1. Why put that type of pressure on him before he has even received the playbook? I'm cheering for him but to me he fell into one of the worst situations he could end up in.
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