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It’s been a rollercoaster of a week in regards to the Marcus Mariota injury report. Following an injury on Sunday that forced him to exit against the Dolphins, Mariota sat out Monday and Tuesday. He was a full participant in Wednesday’s session, then a limited participant on Thursday.
Vrabel sounded confident on Wednesday, but clearly some sort of setback has taken place here. Mariota didn’t throw in the open portion of practice today.
Now Vrabel says that both Blaine Gabbert and Mariota could play on Sunday.
Titans’ HC Mike Vrabel said he anticipates that there is a scenario that both QBs, Marcus Mariota and Blaine Gabbert, are likely to play Sunday vs Texans.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 14, 2018
“We are evaluating. We anticipate both of those guys playing in the game,” Vrabel told the media on Friday. “We are going to have to do a lot of things to win this football game, and I would anticipate both of those guys playing at some point and time.”
So Mariota is clearly close enough to not be ruled out, but he’s far enough away to where Vrabel can confidently say that Gabbert is going to get some run on Sunday. Maybe his quote came out wrong, but it sure sounds like he’s telling us that the Titans plan on using some sort of two quarterbacks system against the Texans.
Or maybe he’s just telling us Mariota isn’t going to play, but he doesn’t want to tip his hands to the Texans yet.
Without Taylor Lewan and Jack Conklin for at least this week, it may not be the worst idea to shut Mariota down for another week to ensure that no further damage occurs.