Gang to Jet in and visit Mariota
THE JETS’ brain trust will make a crosscountry trek in full force this weekend to take a closer look at the guy who might be their next franchise quarterback.
General manager Mike Maccagnan and five key team decision-makers will hold a private workout for Marcus Mariota on Saturday in Eugene, Ore., to further evaluate the Heisman Trophy winner a month before the NFL draft.
The Jets are either extremely intrigued by the former Oregon star signal-caller or putting up one hell of a smokescreen.
Maccagnan will be accompanied by head coach Todd Bowles, offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, quarterbacks coach Kevin Patullo, director of college scouting Rex Hogan and director of player personnel Brian Heimerdinger for a thorough assessment that will include on-field drills and classroom work designed to test his football IQ. (They might even feed him after the grilling sessions are over.)
Maccagnan and Bowles have maintained a best-player available mind-set for the team’s No. 6 overall pick in the draft that begins on April 30. Mariota and Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, who will have his pro day on Tuesday, are appealing given the Jets’ shaky quarterback situation.
Bowles admitted that Geno Smith is currently slated to be the starting quarterback over veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick at the outset of training camp, but the landscape changes if Mariota enters the picture.
“We’re spending a lot of time on it,” Bowles said this week at the annual league meetings in Phoenix about the organization’s quarterback evaluation process in the run-up to the draft. “We’ve still got to work (Winston and Mariota) out. We’re going to do our homework on those guys at the top of the draft, but then we’re going to do our diligence on all the guys that could possibly go at No. 6. It’s not just the quarterbacks. It’s all of them.”
Mariota is the ultimate enigma. Although he put up cartoonish stats last season — 42 passing touchdowns, 15 rushing touchdowns and only four interceptions — there are fair concerns over whether he can thrive in a pro-style offense. Mariota is not considered a sure thing by scouts concerned about his learning curve coming from a college spread system.
Bowles said he’d “have to reserve comment” on how difficult of a transition Mariota and other signal-callers from a spread system would have to make until sitting down with the players to “go through the process with them on the chalkboard talks and see what they see and kind of understand what they see, and go through the footwork process.”
Maccagnan was among the roughly 100 scouts and evaluators from across the league at Mariota’s uneven pro day performance on March 12. The next step on Saturday will include a much more specialized and thorough workout designed to answer most of the Jets’ questions. (Maccagnan and Co. will have a private workout for Winston, too, before the draft.)
Mariota, of course, might not even slip past the Titans at the No. 2 pick.
“It’s hard to not be impressed with what he did in college,” Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said at the league meetings. “If he comes to us at No. 2, if we pick him at No. 2, then you definitely think he’s going to be the Day 1 starter.”
So, how do the Jets really feel about Mariota?
They’ll have a much better idea after putting him through the wringer on Saturday.