After going back and watching some tape on Mariotta, here is the best I can come up with. It is easy to see why so many people are high on the kid. He is one of the most athletic prospects that I can ever remember at the QB position. In some of his older games, I think he sold out and ran a little premature in a lot of instances, however in later games, I see him keeping his eyes down the field and looking to make the play with his arm. He did it against Oregon St on a 4th and 7 and again this year against Colorado. He seems to have the arm strength as well and he's usually not brought down by one defender. What I think I like most about him is that he is decisive and displays a lot of confidence on the field, he's never afraid of pulling the trigger. As for what I don't like, he plays in an offense where he doesn't have to make a lot of NFL throws and his stats are inflated so immensely by YAC. I've seen multiple instances where little 3 yard screens turn into 80 yard TD's. At Oregon passing lanes are rarely congested and many plays are designed screens that don't require him to make a read or a decision with the ball . At times, he also struggles with accuracy, especially downfield, on several occasions missing an wide open WR. While, as many of you have eluded to he does suffer from a lot of drops, he also equally misses open receivers a lot of times. Also, he throws off of his back foot so often, even on plays where he isn't rushed and doesn't really need to, if he continues that in the NFL, he will have absolutely no chance. While he does at times look off of his first WR, he moves through his reads EXTREMELY slowly and looks more and more uncomfortable as the play goes on. Luckily, he usually has all day to throw, so this doesn't effect him much at the college level. Overall, he lacks a lot of polish and tries to escape the pocket early a lot of times, so I can certainly see where TMD would compare him to Gabbert. Ironically enough, other people see this as well http://rosterwatch.com/2014-nfl-draft-pl...-qb-oregon

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While it can lead to jaw-dropping runs or a few uncanny escapes from a broken-down pocket, it appears Mariota has developed a run-first mentality. The young quarterback will bail a fairly clean and safe pocket after only scanning the field for a quick second or two. Some call this the “Blaine Gabbert Disease.”

I would still grade him as a top 10 pick, simply because he has so much raw athletic ability and room to improve, but he is much more of a project than Bridgewater or Boyd.

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