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The NFL carousel of quarterback moves continued to spin on Monday afternoon, as former Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders QB Marcus Mariota signed a two-year, $18.75 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons. The move was necessitated by the Falcons missing out on embattled quarterback Deshaun Watson and subsequently trading away longtime starter Matt Ryan to the Colts the day after. While it's certainly a puzzling move for you to trade your 14-year starting quarterback away only to pick up a cheaper veteran option, it shows that the Falcons, who were close to a playoff spot last season, are still thinking in that mindset though they do not figure to contend heavily this season.
It's been a troubling offseason for these Falcons. Star wide receiver Calvin Ridley has been suspended for the entire 2022 season for gambling on his own team's games (at least he picked them to win?) and Russell Gage chose to depart in-division to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the news that Tom Brady unretired. After both of these, the Falcons chased hard after Watson to come home (he grew up in Atlanta and Warrick Dunn gifted his family a home as a child) and hoped that he would usher in the next era of Falcons football and set them up to rule the division after Brady presumably retired in the next year or two.
Once they missed out though, it was time to move quickly. The number of open QB teams was shrinking rapidly, and it was clear that Ryan felt slighted by this process and determined that it was time to move on from the only NFL team he'd ever known. He privately pushed for a trade and was granted his wish, being dealt to the Indianapolis Colts for a third-round pick in this year's draft. Immediately after that trade was announced, enter Mariota: the newest member of the Falcons' organization.
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What does Mariota bring to the Falcons?
Mariota has had a troubling career since being picked second overall in the 2015 NFL Draft by the Titans. After four seasons of somewhat mediocre play, he was benched in Week 6 of the 2019 season for Ryan Tannehill, who never gave up the starting job again. Mariota subsequently signed with the Raiders in 2020 and has been used as a gadget player at times in short-yardage situations but has mostly sat on the bench as the backup to Derek Carr. Now on the Falcons, Mariota once again has the chance to start and can show that his talents have not yet evaporated.
This is a fortuitous landing for Mariota, as there is some overlap here between him and the coaching staff. He is familiar with head coach Arthur Smith, as Smith was the offensive coordinator under Mike Vrabel in Tennessee while Mariota was still there. This probably led the Falcons to be comfortable handing Mariota the starting job keys for the time being, but the Falcons will presumably still look for a quarterback of the future in this or next year's draft, so Mariota will quickly have to show why he still belongs in the NFL's starting QB discussion. He has the benefit of this season looking like a rebuilding year for the Falcons though so he will have a chance to prove himself, although we could be looking at plays like this with the current wide receiver depth chart of the Falcons.
Mariota's Fantasy Outlook
Mariota has been a puzzling fantasy football quarterback since he entered the league. He has the requisite rushing ability to be a high-caliber fantasy QB, racking up at least 250 rushing yards in each of his first four seasons, but he has not shown to be a prolific passer, which has limited his upside. With finishes of QB22, QB15, QB16, and QB27 in those four seasons, we see that he has high-end QB2 upside, but turnovers have limited him from reaching higher. Mariota has shown in recent years though that he is being more careful with the football. In his most recent season as a starter in 2019, he started the year with seven passing touchdowns to zero turnovers in his first five games, averaging 225 passing yards per game along with 25 rush yards/game.
With the Falcons' current offensive weapons consisting of Kyle Pitts, Cordarrelle Patterson, and not much else, Mariota will have to get creative. There are a few lower-level wide receiver options left on the free agency market, but it is more realistic to see Atlanta using a premium pick on a wide receiver, perhaps as early as the eighth overall pick. Any of the top options, be it Garrett Wilson, Drake London, or Treylon Burks, would be awesome options for Mariota to have this year, but in the meantime, Pitts and Patterson presumably will lead this team in targets this season.
At the end of the day, Mariota is a fantasy football QB2. He may have the upside to get to the fringe of the high-end QB2 area, but is severely limited by how bad we project this team to be and without another significant wide receiver addition by the Falcons this offseason, I don't know if you can project much higher than that. Currently, Mariota would be my QB22, ahead of guys like Zach Wilson and Carson Wentz, but behind options such as Tua Tagovailoa and Ryan Tannehill.
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