Dynasty Fantasy Football: 8 Players to Buy Before Week 1
Marcus Mariota, QB, Tennessee Titans
ADP: 108th overall (QB13)
Marcus Mariota underwhelmed last season on his way to a QB18 finish. That's caused his stock to crater as he has gone from last year's QB4 to this year's QB13, a fall of more than 50 picks.
That makes now a pretty nice time to buy Mariota, who looks to be in line for a bounce-back campaign in his age-25 season.
A lot of the reason for Mariota's poor fantasy production last year stems from a lack of touchdowns as he threw for a mere 13 scores. That's exactly half as many passing touchdowns as he had in 2016. While we can't put it all on bad fortune, luck was certainly a factor as his touchdown rate plummeted. Here are his numbers from the last two seasons.
| Season | Passing Yards | Yards Per Game | Passing Touchdowns | Touchdown Rate | Fantasy Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 3,426 | 228.4 | 26 | 5.8% | QB13 |
| 2017 | 3,232 | 215.5 | 13 | 2.9% | QB18 |
Mariota did toss a career-worst 15 picks last year, so it's not all bad luck. But the touchdown rate was pretty flukey. Mariota's 2.9% touchdown rate checked in 27th among the 32 signal callers who led their team in pass attempts last season. That's after he ranked 4th (2016) and 15th (2015), respectively, the previous two years.
The Titans finished as the lone team to score a higher percentage of their touchdowns on the ground (56.25%) than they did through the air, and their entire offense is due for some positive regression.
On top of that, the Titans have ditched the exotic smashmouth offense for an innovative offensive mind in Matt LaFleur, who was hired away from the Rams to be Tennessee's new offensive coordinator. If second-year wideout Corey Davis can make a jump, it would give the Titans some pretty nice offensive weapons around Mariota (Davis, Dion Lewis, Derrick Henry, Delanie Walker and Rishard Matthews).
Plus, Mariota's running ability is perfect for fantasy,giving a lift to both his weekly floor and ceiling. He's averaged 51.3 attempts, 304.3 yards and 3.0 touchdowns as a runner across his first three seasons. He logged eight carries inside the 10 yard-line last year, scoring on five of them.
We should expect Mariota to have a better year in 2018, and such a season would shoot him back up the dynasty ranks.
