Marcus Mariota (QB, TEN) - Week 11 Waiver Wire Pickups

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ANALYSIS: Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota and the Titans shocked the Patriots this week with a commanding 34-10 win at home. Mariota put up 21.82 points in the victory, making it his second straight game with greater than 20 points. Before the bye week Mariota had been struggling to reach double digits, doing so just twice in six games. He was dealing with a nerve injury which affected his ability to throw deep, a skill that is already not Mariota’s strong suit. It’s unclear how much the injury affected Mariota’s fantasy production, but he was just the 27th highest scoring quarterback coming into this week, averaging 13.64 points per game. However, Mariota appears healthy and has a great matchup in Week 11 against Indianapolis.

The Colts are allowing 18 points per game to opposing quarterbacks, which slightly below average, but that number is inflated thanks to facing Derek Anderson. Anderson scored minus one point against the Colts, and if we remove that clear aberration Indianapolis is allowing 20.7 points per game to quarterbacks, making them a bottom-five defense. It can sometimes be disingenuous to remove a good or bad performance from a team’s overall numbers, but Anderson played so poorly that the opposing defense hardly mattered in that game. Mariota is a much better quarterback than Anderson, and seems like a good bet for at least 20 points this week.