What should we expect from Mariota this season?

• 
• 

Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota made plenty of magic happen during his rookie season, piling up more than 2,800 yards passing, throwing 19 touchdowns and recording an 87-yard scramble to the end zone.

• 
  
  
  So what should fans expect for an encore?
  
  
  Based on the progress made by recent highly drafted quarterbacks between their first and second seasons as starters, it’s reasonable to expect even better numbers from Mariota in 2016.
  
  But because Mariota set such a high bar last season — posting the third-best rookie passer rating in the last 10 years — it might not be fair to assume he’ll make huge statistical strides in year two, the kind made by Blake Bortles of the Jaguars and Derek Carr of the Raiders after less impressive rookie seasons.
  
  Mariota and Titans coaches are focused far less on fantasy stat projections than they are on seeing improvement in other areas: taking fewer sacks, committing fewer turnovers and gaining a better knowledge of the offense.
  
  
  “I’ve often said the most important year of football is between year one and year two,” said Floyd Reese, the former Titans general manager now part of "Sports Night" on 102.5-FM. “Marcus could be satisfied with that face-of-the-franchise label for a while, and be satisfied getting to the point where you’re a contender every year, sometimes in the playoffs and sometimes not.
  
  "Or he’s going to decide, 'I want to be as good as I can be out there. I want to be the year-after-year perennial Pro Bowl quarterback.' I think that’s the difference.”
  
  Stats don't tell full story
  
  A number of highly drafted quarterbacks over the past several years have taken big statistical leaps in their second starting season.
  
  Andrew Luck, for instance, bumped his passer rating from 76.5 in 2012 to 87.0 in 2013 and cut his interceptions in half — from 18 to nine. Bortles’ touchdown-to-interception ratio went from 11-17 in 2014 to 35-18 last season, and Carr threw for 11 more touchdowns and 700 more yards in his second season than he did as a rookie.
  
  
  But Mariota’s rookie success — at least as far as his high passer rating (91.5) — could mean his second-year projections might more closely mirror that of others.
  
  Teddy Bridgewater posted an 85.2 rating during his 2014 rookie season with the Vikings, for instance, and bettered himself in some respects last season. Playing more games, he improved his completion percentage, trimmed his interception total by two and improved his rating to 88.7.
  
  
  
  A few years earlier, Cam Newton made one important step between 2011 and 2012 with the Panthers, throwing five fewer interceptions while boosting his rating from 84.5 to 86.2.
  
  “You almost have to separate it a little, between the quarterback’s statistical numbers and how the team operates,” said Titans wide receivers coach Bob Bratkowski, who served as Bengals offensive coordinator when quarterback Carson Palmer became a starter.
  
  
  “At times, quarterbacks are overly judged somewhat on their stats. The key ones to me are going to be completion percentage, interceptions and the things a lot of people don’t see — like doing things to allow the run game to be better.”
  
  Performance in the pocket
  
  One area in which the Titans expect to see Mariota improve is his pocket awareness.
  
  He was was sacked 38 times last season, the most among quarterbacks who played in 12 or fewer games. The Titans want to see that number go down not only because it will reduce the risk of injury to Mariota — who missed four games last season — but because sacks can limit a team’s ability to string together first downs or result in turnovers.
  
  The main responsibility for protection falls on the offensive line, but quarterbacks can help by throwing the ball away when they feel pressure. Mariota was sacked on more than 26 percent of the plays on which he was pressured, per Pro Football Focus, the highest figure in the league.
  
  “I’ve really emphasized getting rid of the ball instead of taking sacks,” Titans coach Mike Mularkey said. “Marcus has been told an incompletion is OK. Live another down. But a sack can be catastrophic, so throw the ball away and move on to the next down.”
  
  Mariota said he believes a year’s experience will mean holding onto the ball less:
  
  “Being comfortable in the offense, knowing where my outs are in terms of if we miss a protection, where I can get the ball out quick … A lot of those things are things I’ve learned from last season and it’s really helped me out here this OTAs.”
  
  Attention to detail
  
  Mariota should also have better knowledge of the offense, especially with Mularkey streamlining it for simplicity in the offseason.
  
  “It starts with the verbiage and then goes all the way through,” Mariota said of the changes. “It’s a lot easier across the board now to get everyone on the same page.”
  
  Familiarity with the offense in its streamlined form will allow Mariota a wider variety of options when executing plays than he had as a rookie.
  
  
  “If you’re a young quarterback and you’re trying to improve your second year, I think it involves detail,” Reese said. “Maybe last year your objective was on every pass play to locate the free safety and always throw away from the deepest safety.
  
  “Well this year, you take that and you add, 'Are the corners playing inside or outside technique? Which linebacker can get to the tight end the fastest? Which linebacker will provide the best underneath help?’ Things like that.”
  
  Bratkowski warns, however, that a little knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing for second-year quarterbacks. That could help explain why some second-year starters — like Robert Griffin III with the Redskins and Sam Bradford with the Eagles — stumbled following their rookie seasons.
  
  “The biggest risk a second-year quarterback faces is that now he has attained a certain amount of knowledge and sometimes he tries to do too much, thinking, 'Boy, I can fix everything and do this, that and the other,’ ” Bratkowski said. “That’s the risk is that they don’t stay in their boundaries. Maybe in year three or four, they can take it another notch up and do more things.”
  
  
  Getting better at going deep
  
  Two other areas in which Mariota could improve his numbers are turnovers and deep passing.
  
  While he threw just 10 interceptions in 12 games, he did fumble 10 times, losing six, tied for tops in the league. Part of the reason, of course, was that he was getting sacked so often.
  
  As for throwing long, Mariota had the worst deep-passing accuracy percentage (throws that travel more than 20 yards in the air only) of any NFL quarterback in 2015, per Pro Football Focus. But having at least one more potential deep threat in free-agent wide receiver Rishard Matthews is bound to help.
  
  “You have to have a deep passing game within your offense,” Mariota said. “It’s got to be incorporated in some form or fashion. You can’t just limit yourself to underneath routes and let the defense kind of sit on those things. I’m all for it. I love throwing the deep ball.”
  
  Titans fans won’t know just how much better Mariota will be for another three months. But he’s approaching the second season with a healthy enthusiasm, earning praise from coaches and teammates for everything from better body language to the increased number of questions he's asking.
  
  
  “Just from listening to the coaches that were here last year, they feel really good about the steps Marcus has taken, even in the OTAs,” Bratkowski said. “They’re saying, 'Geez, he is so much more comfortable and he looks very confident out there to me.’ Those are all very positive signs going into his second year.”
  
  
  SECOND-YEAR STARTERS
  A number of former high/first-round draft picks made significant strides in their second year as a starting quarterback. Here are recent examples of some who succeeded and two who struggled:
  
  TWO WHO JUMPED
  
  Blake Blortles, Jaguars
  
  Year...Games...W-L...Comp. Pct....Yards...TD...Int....Rating
  
  2014...13...3-10...58.9...2,908...11...17...69.5
  
  2015...16...5-11...58.6...4,428...35..18...88.2
  
  Derek Carr, Raiders
  
  Year...Games...W-L...Comp. Pct....Yards...TD...Int....Rating
  
  2014...16...3-13...58.1...3,270...21...12...76.6
  
  2015...16...7-9...61.1...3,987...32...13...91.1
  
  TWO WHO SLUMPED
  
  Sam Bradford, Eagles
  Robert Griffin III, Redskins

What do y'all expect this season from Mariota?

 

Its not my words just the article I felt people would rather not have to click a link to see

 

No worries. You have the remaining offseason left to read it all.