The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will likely take Jamies Winston with the first overall pick, but Marcus Mariota is still an intriguing player -- and he looks like he's set to go to the Tennessee Titans at number two. In his latest Move The Sticks podcast, Daniel Jeremiah examined Mariota's play on the field, and his personality off the field. Jeremiah did a similar podcast on Jameis Winston two weeks ago.
This podcast on Mariota was outstanding, but there were no real key quotes. Jeremiah talked to old coaches, teammates and others -- like Stanford head coach David Shaw. I didn't transcribe anything -- you're going to have to listen to all of it if you want to know the details, but the key takeaways are easy:
- Marcus Mariota's personality both as a leader and off the field will work just fine in the NFL. Yes, he's quiet -- but that's a question of style, not one of effectiveness. No one had real questions about his personality.
- Mariota has an outstanding skill-set and he improved year-to-year, but there are still some questions about his transition simply because there are many things he wasn't asked to do very often. Jeremiah was a lot more concerned about how he'll handle the huddle than I would be, intriguingly.
- Jeremiah thought he played outstanding football in the national championship game, and he was more impressed with him there than with him in the playoff game against Florida State.
- Jeremiah thinks Ryan Tannehill is a great comparison for Mariota.
Again, listen to the podcast. It's terrific. But keep in mind that Mariota almost certainly won't be the Bucs' quarterback. Because that's still Jameis Winston.