The Sports Xchange

NASHVILLE — The talk of Tennessee Titans camp through the first nine practices has been the play of quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Not that Mariota wasn’t going to be scrutinized anyway, no matter what his play, but the fact that the rookie has been interception-free through those nine practices has generated not only local buzz, but also national attention. Some wonder whether Mariota’s lack of interceptions is more of a reflection on him or on the Titans defense, which hasn’t fared so well in recent years.

It isn’t as if Mariota has been perfect — he hasn’t. But, at least in the eyes of daily observers both in the media and with the team, he has been far ahead of where most rookie quarterbacks might be at this stage of development. That is especially true given that he comes from a spread system and has had to familiarize himself with even the simplest things like getting the play call in the helmet, to running a huddle and taking a snap under center.

Part of what has helped Mariota succeed has been his intelligence, his dedication and his attention to detail.

“He is very sharp, doesn’t make a lot of mistakes and really works at it,” Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “I can’t emphasize enough, there are going to be growing pains, there are going to be tough spots that we go through, but he is really doing a nice job with handling this whole process.”

One of the things that has helped Mariota too is that he seems to be like a baseball closer. He has a short memory when he makes a mistake and quickly moves on to the next task at hand.

“For me, I’ve always kind of had that mentality of just dropping the last play and focusing on what’s coming up next,” Mariota said.

The Titans defense has picked off all the other quarterbacks in practice at least once — victimizing Zach Mettenberger, Charlie Whitehurst and Alex Tanney — and the defense admits it is getting a little bit itchy in trying to get one from the rookie quarterback.

“Praise to him for learning from OTAs. In OTAs, we came out and we had a lot of turnovers,” said cornerback Perrish Cox, who has gotten his hands on a couple of footballs from Mariota. “A player like him, he’s young and we can tell he’s learning. Praise to him, but at the same time, we’re itching for one. Particularly me, I’m itching for one, especially off him.”

–The Titans avoided a scare when tight end Delanie Walker suffered a cut on his hand last week. Walker suffered the cut on a pass breakup by safety Da’Norris Searcy and returned to the huddle, noticeably favoring his left arm. He stayed in for one more play, but after the period ended, he went in to the locker room. Though both Walker and Whisenhunt said the injury was not serious, it did take 12 stitches to close the wound, and Walker has missed three straight practices since the injury.

“I got a cut on my hand and the trainers wanted to be smart with the cut and to make sure everything was OK. I got stitches, but it’s just a small cut,” said Walker, who was wearing a bandage on his left thumb in the locker room after the injury occurred.