Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said he was looking for a ‘spark’ shortly after naming quarterback Ryan Tannehill the new starter over Marcus Mariota.
After Mariota was benched late in the third quarter following his second interception of the day, Tannehill looked serviceable enough, completing 13-of-16 passes for 144 yards with one interception.
Still, like Mariota, he didn’t put any additional points on the board and the interception he threw took away the only real chance of the day the Titans had to get to the scoreboard.
While Tannehill is considered an upgrade by many at this point over an inconsistent Mariota, they could turn out to be similar quarterbacks.
At least, that’s how it looks based on the numbers.
Mariota and Tannehill have a similar win-to-loss ratio, the exact same completion percentage, are close in terms on passing yards per game and have a nearly identical touchdown-to-interception ratio as starters.
On the fifth year of his career, Mariota has completed 62.9% of his passes for 13,183 yards with 76 touchdowns and 44 interceptions.
Tannehill has completed 62.9% of his passes for 20,578 yards with 123 touchdowns and 76 interceptions on his eighth NFL season.
It will be interesting to see just how much better of an option Tannehill can be over Mariota as he takes the reins against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday afternoon in Nissan Stadium.
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