ATLANTA. For the first time since the 2007 season, the Falcons need a full-fledged starting quarterback other than Matt Ryan, and Marcus Mariota understands the importance of a potential replacement.
“Without a doubt, these are big shoes to fill out,” Mariota said on Friday. “I think I’ve definitely learned over the course of my career that you can’t compare yourself to other people. What Matt has done here, what he has achieved here, is truly great, and for me, I’m just there to carve my own path.
“I appreciate what he did, I appreciate what he was for this organization and the best thing I can do is try to do my best and be the best player I can be.”
Mariota, 28, is approaching a potential starting role — although he said he wasn’t guaranteed a job — for the first time since the 2019 season, when he was a quarterback for the Tennessee Titans and their then-team. – offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who is now the coach of the Falcons.
That season, Mariota was benched by Ryan Tannehill and eventually moved to the Las Vegas Raiders, where he supported Derek Carr for two years. He has played in 11 games over the past two seasons, completing 60% of passes for 230 yards, touchdowns and interceptions.
Selected No. 2 in the 2015 draft, Mariota spent five years with the Titans, playing in 63 games with 61 starts and completing 62.9% of his passes for 13,207 yards, 76 touchdowns, and 44 interceptions.
However, his final season with the Titans was difficult as he completed 59.4% of his passes for 1,203 yards with seven touchdowns and two interceptions in seven games. Towards the end of his tenure with the Titans, Mariota said he was “mentally and physically exhausted” and he said he had learned a lot over the past three seasons.
“During my time in Tennessee, we experienced many different things. I changed coaches, broke my ankle, some of these things people would call adversity,” Mariota said. “At that point in my career in 2019, I was tired. I was just tired of all the turnover, tired of the beatings, didn’t play very well and at the end of the day it’s a performance business and when you play badly anything happens and I understood that.
“These last couple of years have been a great reboot for me. I had the opportunity to take a step back, to learn, and I feel like I did it, and this experience has been of great benefit to me.”
Part of what attracted Mariota to the Falcons is Smith, who he believes will always be honest with him. Mariota said that with the Titans, he didn’t interact enough with Smith and was just “trying to do his best to please the coach”.
Now, according to Mariota, he believes that communication will be better thanks to what he learned from the Raiders. On Wednesday, Smith said that part of the reason he wanted to bring in Mariota was because of their trust in each other.
“He and I have grown a lot. Ironically, they are completely different players, but Ryan Tannehill was in that situation when we took Ryan,” Smith said. “So Marcus is just as high-end as Ryan. He was selected in the first round. He’s at a different stage in his career, and I trust Markus, and Markus, he’ll come here and give us everything he’s got.
“He has a high-class talent and he understands what happened in the past. He learned a lot from them, I learned from them and we are excited about this opportunity.”
If he wins the job, Mariota will be the Falcons’ first other starting quarterback since Matt Schaub replaced Ryan due to injury on October 27, 2019. He will be the first full starter other than Ryan, as another former Oregon quarterback, Joey Harrington, essentially played that role for most of the 2007 season.
Mariota, who will wear No. 1 in Atlanta because his traditional No. 8 is used by the Falcons’ main target, tight end Kyle Pitts, said the team contacted him as soon as there was talk of a Ryan trade. Mariota said that Smith asked if he would like to come in if Ryan, who was traded to the Indianapolis Colts on Monday, decides to leave, and Mariota was intrigued.
Soon after, Mariota became the Falcon.
“In the end, the opportunity to be here caused even more excitement,” Mariota said. “Being with Arthur.”