Tennessee Titans: Is Marcus Mariota Destined for a Breakout Season?

The Tennessee Titan’s new offensive coordinator has done wonders with previous quarterbacks. Will he lead Titans’ QB Marcus Mariota to a career year?

The Tennessee Titans have had an interesting story the last three seasons. In 2015, they fired head coach Ken Whisenhunt halfway through the season. Mike Mularkey took over as interim head coach and finished the season tied with a league-worst 3-13 record.

Mularkey became head coach the following offseason, and that lead to a bounce-back 9-7 season in 2016. Nashvillians rejoiced and praised their hometown team. Hope in Nashville formed, until they responded with another 9-7 season and this time it wasn’t so promising. Instead of taking another leap forward, the 2017 Titans took a giant step back. Especially quarterback Marcus Mariota.

The 24-year-old quarterback teased flashes of potential throughout the season. However, he wasn’t the same flyin’-Hawaiian we saw in 2016. Mariota had a career-low 13 touchdowns and a career-high 15 interceptions. In 2016, he had 26 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

Mularkey found himself on the hot seat, despite Titans’ ownership covering it up by stating that he was receiving an extension. The Titans were playoff-bound for the first time since 2008, but the Titans still fired Mularkey.

Although a man losing his job is never ideal, Mularkey being fired is the best thing that could’ve happened for Mariota. Mularkey’s replacement, Mike Vrabel, has made it clear that he wants to maximize the skillset of his quarterback, with the addition of the offensive coordinator from the Rams, Matt LeFleur.

LeFleur didn’t call plays in Los Angeles under Sean McVay. Albeit, he aided quarterback Jared Goff to a breakout season for the Rams. Goff threw for 28 touchdowns and had an impressive 3,084 yards.

Goff had 1,089 yards and five touchdowns in 2016, when LeFleur was with the Falcons aiding Matt Ryan to a career-best 69.9% completion percentage, 4,944 yards, 38 touchdowns, and a quarterback rating of 117.1.  Matt Ryan won MVP that season and stood toe-to-toe with Tom Brady in Superbowl 51.

Those are overwhelmingly-impressive numbers, but there was one thing those two offenses had in common: explosive plays. LeFleur will not hesitate to bring that explosiveness to Tennessee.

Under Mularkey, the Titans lacked much explosiveness on the offensive side. Only 39 passes went for more than 20 yards, and only six went for more than 40 yards. According to LeFleur, that won’t cut it in the NFL.

"“It is extremely difficult to dink and dunk all the way down the field,” LeFleur said, via the team’s website, “The defenses are just too good. If you look at it, statistically the teams that are getting chunk plays, the explosive [plays], those are the teams that are going to produce more yards, more points.”"

The Titans offense had trouble scoring points. They settled for field goals and found themselves in a lot of close games.

That will all be a thing of the past come 2018. We should expect more of an explosive offense. That’ll allow Mariota to step up and lead this offense to the prosperity that the management is foreseeing. It’s no coincidence that every quarterback LeFleur has touched in the NFL has turned into gold in the last four seasons. The same will happen with Mariota.