More on Marcus Mariota's Historic First Start

Marcus Mariota broke the NFL yesterday.  There will be plenty of time to contextualize it as just one start, but we aren't going to do that right now.  Right now we are going to celebrate the fact that our rookie quarterback posted a perfect passer rating in his first start while the guy that was selected ahead of him was pretty terrible.  What do we call that?

That's right Charlie, WINNING!!!1

ESPN.com posted this today from Elias Sports Bureau.  Here are a few of the highlights:

Mariota become only the 2nd quarterback ever to throw a 50+ yard touchdown for his first career touchdown less than 2 minutes into his first game (I love stats like this).  Matt Ryan was the other.

Mariota is also the only player to throw 2 touchdowns in the first quarter of his debut.  He is also the first player since Frank Tarkenton in 1961(!) to throw 4 TDs in his first game.  1961!  That is 20 years before I was born.

And, oh yeah, he also had a perfect passer rating.

Pro Football Focus is attempting to rain on our parade by saying that Mariota's day was good but not perfect.  This is the final line of the post:

The passer rating may have been perfect, but the performance has plenty of room to grow to hit that level.

I mean seriously, what kind of crap is that?

The post is actually pretty good, but he shouldn't be downgraded for the distance his passes traveled. The Titans had an excellent game plan, obviously, that Mariota executed perfectly, obviously....nothing to downgrade there.