Titans QB Mariota won't blame injury for slump

Dec 14, 2017 - 4:19 AM Most of the talk regarding the Tennessee Titans -- aside from their overall poor play Sunday in Arizona -- has been about what is going on with quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Mariota has struggled this season especially in recent games with interceptions and now the Titans are talking about his injuries as being a contributing factor to his struggles.

Mariota came into 2017 after having suffered a broken fibula at the end of last season, and on Monday head coach Mike Mularkey said the injury was probably a contributing factor in the quarterback's early-season struggles with stepping into his throws.

For his part, Mariota refuses to blame injuries for his poor statistics -- 10 touchdown passes to 14 interceptions.

"First of all, I don't even like talking about injuries. Secondly, everyone is playing (hurt). There are 53 guys in there that have to deal with something, and I'm just one of those guys," Mariota said.

However, as the season has gone on, Mularkey indicated that other ailments -- a hamstring injury suffered in Week 4 against Houston, and a knee sprain sustained Sunday in Arizona -- have had an adverse effect.

Mularkey said Wednesday that Mariota's knee injury, which he sustained in the first quarter, but did not miss a play, did limit the play-calls from that point on in the game. Mariota threw two costly interceptions, and the Titans lost 12-7 in embarrassing fashion.

"The times that he's had those injuries, it's limited to whether we've known and we've had a game plan or it's happened in games and we've had to adjust the game plan," Mularkey said. "It's something that you've got to do for everybody. Even when (Taylor) Lewan went out, we had to do some things differently that we had planned and couldn't do. That's just the way it works, that's any player."

Mariota would not offer up the injuries as an excuse, however.

"Whatever happens, happens, I just have to go out there and execute what the coaches want me to do," Mariota said. "Obviously, there's certain things that you can't do when maybe somebody is banged up. The coaches call the plays, the players have to go out there and execute."

The good news on Wednesday was that Mariota was a full participant in practice after it was expected earlier in the week that he might end up being limited early this week.

Whatever his health, Mariota knows he has to do a better job of protecting the football from turnovers and also injecting some life into an offense that has not performed consistently for the better part of two months.