Countdown to Kickoff: 9 Days

The countdown to kickoff continues.

The Tennessee Titans will open the 2020 regular season Sept. 14 at Denver. That is nine days away. So, today we look at one way the number nine figures into the team’s recent history.

To say Marcus Mariota got off to a rough start in his NFL career might be a bit of an understatement.

The second overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft lost nine games as a rookie. During the Titans era (1999-present), only Steve McNair lost more in a single season when he ended his Titans tenure with 10 losses (14 starts) in 2005.

Mariota logged 12 starts in his first season and his winning percentage (.250) is the worst for any Tennessee quarterback who started at least half a season. The nine losses also were nearly twice the number he experienced in three seasons at the University of Oregon (five).

To be fair, that team led by coach Ken Whisenhunt, who was fired after seven games, was not particularly good.

And the only games Tennessee won was when Mariota the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner, was at his best. He had a perfect passer rating (158.3) in his debut, a 28-point rout of Tampa Bay, and directed game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime for the other two triumphs. He was 6-for-6 for 62 yards and a touchdown (he finished with a career-high 371 passing yards) in overtime at New Orleans. In a three-point victory over Jacksonville, he rushed for a career-high 112 yards and a touchdown and threw for 268 yards and three more touchdowns.

Anything less than a spectacular Mariota, however, meant defeat.

He won more than he lost in each of the next three years – he was 8-7 in 2016, 9-6 in 2017 and 7-6 in 2018 – but never won enough to firmly take hold of the job.