Marcus Mariota is back in the starting lineup, and Fred Smoot made the case that Washington can lean on him right away. With Jayden Daniels sidelined by a dislocated elbow suffered against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2, the 32-year-old Mariota has been thrust back into the role the Washington Commanders need him to fill.
Smoot did not stop at saying Mariota is useful. He said Mariota right now, today, is better than Cam Ward and that you can probably win more games with Mariota than with Malik Willis, aside from the age gap. In other words, his view was not that Mariota is some untouchable star, only that the Mariota quarterback Washington is turning to now gives a better shot than two starters Smoot named.
That argument has weight because Mariota has already shown he can steady Washington in a pinch. He went 2-6 in relief of Daniels last season, and the former second overall pick has a resume that still includes leading the Tennessee Titans to a playoff victory over the Kansas City Chiefs during the 2017 season. He also has a career average of 11.9 yards per pass completion, a number that helps explain why evaluators still see a capable downfield thrower when he is moving on time and in rhythm.
Logan Paulsen pointed to exactly that. He said Mariota throws a really nice deep ball and throws with good timing, and that showed up on a pass to Dyami Brown against the Dallas Cowboys that drew attention. The Commanders have also treated Mariota as a credible backup because he shares some read-option and dual-threat traits with Daniels, even if the offense had already been moving toward more under-center concepts under first-year offensive coordinator David Blough before the injury.
Smoot’s praise came with a sharp limit. In the same breath that he put Mariota above Ward and Willis, he said Mariota would probably rank only 29th among quarterbacks. That is the split in the conversation now: Washington is asking a player Smoot sees as merely mid-tier in a broad ranking to hold together a season that changed in one hit, and to do it while the team waits to see whether this stretch becomes more than a temporary bridge.
For now, the next answer comes in Week 3 against the Seattle Seahawks. If Mariota can turn Smoot’s confidence into another competent start, Washington will have a workable backup plan; if not, the gap between being better than a few named quarterbacks and being good enough to carry the Commanders will get a lot harder to ignore.
