Mariota's Ceiling Heading Into the Season

LOL!

Of course the OL play affects BOTH RB's!!! Certainly some of Henry's issues early on were affected by leakers getting thru and forcing him (in his mind) to run sideways and get taken down. Or there wasn't a clear hole so he ran into the back of one of his ol and got stuck.

Lewis needs more space to run as he's a smaller back. He's pretty good at running thru arm tackles for his size, but he can't bulldoze open a crack. He doesn't have that power.

The difference is Henry is huge. When he made the decision to just go beast mode, he didn't let small cracks mean he's stuck...he busted them open and ran over/thru ppl for 5 yards or more! He CAN do that. Lewis can't.

If you watch tape of Gurley in the same system, there are plays that I could run thru because he's not touched for 5+ yards and then whoever catches up to him are usually much smaller secondary players.

Additionally, if I remember correctly, they added some of our older power runs (instead of only LaFleur's west coast zone blocking runs) and that also helped Henry since he's more used to power type run plays. But clearly, something clicked for him as he was much more aggressive, seemed to see the field better, and was a lot more fluid.

I haven't gone back and re-watched the tape of those games in a while, but whatever we were running, keep running it. With an improved OL and more weapons at wr and Walker back, we should be able to help Henry more by really hurting people trying to load the box.

RB's, like QB's...need some solid OL play and are seriously affected by it.

 

In general, when both RB's are playing poorly, you look at the OL. He ran well in Miami and then couldn't run effectively til the Chargers game, his best game of the season (running and receiving). Down the stretch it's too hard to quantify good or bad since one game he'd have a 6 yard avg, then 1 the next, then 7 the next and back to 1. The same size is too small to make any judgements on the OL by it so hard to say without looking at the tape.

I think it was a mixture of better OL play as the season went on, better play by Henry, and adding some Henry favored runs outside of LaFleur's system (if I remember correctly).

 

<yawn...>

I'd call them explanations.

I'd like to see you list 1000 explanations I've given on last year's offense. Or even 10!!!

Now there's a challenge for you!

 

Good post though I'd disagree a tad.

I think we have bigger questions about if Conklin can get back to his rookie form (or needs to be moved inside or can even start) or if Kelly takes over RT. RG is a big question mark with multiple potential players and Jones COULD be one of them. He potentially will be fighting off Levin or even Davis (if he can play OC).

Additionally, who is our #2 wr going into the season? Brown, Humphries, Taylor? This could be a potentially big difference to how we call and play games on offense.

Lastly, will Walker be 100%?

And these are beyond the obvious question at QB. I actually think OL depth is pretty good...but not sure we know who our best starters are for the right side of the OL.

On a not so much a question as an excited to see, how do Evans and Landry look?!?!?

 

Right. I'm not sure why someone referred to me as a troll. I'm complimenting our own damn player. We know that Mariota is good when the game is on the line. Apparently, Tannehill is as well. I'm Just trying to educate some people.

 

As the article I put up about explaining QBR...there is more to playing well than ONLY TD/INT's.

Can you give both QB's qbr's for these stats? Not sure where you got the info.

 

A more telling line on Mariota might be his playoff line, 2 playoff games both on the road in inclement weather Arrowhead and Foxboro, 4-1 td to int ratio 94% QB rating, way better than D Watson , Andrew Luck , J Goff in there playoff games, Luck has 12-13 ratio in playoffs, was horrible in Chiefs game despite playing with a # 1 WR in Hilton @1 TE in Ebron the best line in NFL against statistically worst defense in NFL in the Chiefs, checkout how Mariota shredded that Chiefs defense in 2017 which was better personel wise and stats wise. In fact Mariotas first 2 playoff games are significantly better than Joe Montana's and Tom Brady's first 2 playoff games, both QBs had # 1 ranked defenses on their teams to help, them out. Mariota is right on pace, Mcnair took his game to a whole new level in 99 his 5th year in the NFL Titans went 8-8, 3 years in a row 96-98 then busted out due to McNair whopping 12-8 td- int ratio in 99 5th year in the league and lighting it up. Last 3 years we've been 9-7 I think this year we bust out to 13-3 or 14-2 Super Bowl bound mainly because I think the defense will be super and offense very solid.

 

I agree with the above posts.. Mariota does seem to be clutch.

Of course that also highlights his mental weakness the other 99% of the time.
He shows he is capable of doing it when his brain isn't interfering.