Titans' Marcus Mariota has to play like franchise quarterback, but it's not all his fault

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Before agreeing with Marcus Mariota and blaming him for the offensive meltdown that has the Tennessee Titans facing a must-have Sunday at San Francisco, consider:

• Another poor performance from the Titans’ running game in Sunday’s 12-7 loss at Arizona, affected by the early loss of Pro Bowl left tackle Taylor Lewan to a stiff back.

• Ongoing issues with receivers getting open, not helped much by the return of Rishard Matthews – he was coming off a hamstring injury, dealing with elite cornerback Patrick Peterson and made a route mistake that created the first of Mariota’s two interceptions.

• Mariota’s own bruised body, which suffered another setback on an early scramble in which he couldn’t slide fast enough to avoid a hit from the side and awkward fall, tweaking a knee that isn’t expected to keep him out of any game action.

• The Titans’ offensive system, straight out of 1994 as I’m told.

Wait, wait, scratch that last one. It’s a popular one. It’s a bad one. If Mike Mularkey was utilizing run-pass options, receiver sweeps and read-option stuff in the 1990s, he’s one of this game’s great visionaries. NFL coaches “borrow” liberally from one another, and this Titans system can produce like any other with good planning, selection and execution. It had none of the three Sunday.

It’s on Mularkey and offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie to come up with something that works at San Francisco in the biggest game of the Mularkey era. And it’s on Mariota to play like a franchise quarterback.

More:Titans' awful offense puts Mike Mularkey on defensive

For all the things around Mariota that aren’t functioning well – and despite the tendency for this city to blame everything but him – he still has to be much better than he was Sunday. He can’t float a late pass when Corey Davis breaks open deep. He can’t throw behind a wide-open Eric Decker with the Titans trying to come back late. He can’t miss a defender in coverage and throw an interception right into his arms in the same situation.

“I’ve been hurting our team,” Mariota said in a terse press conference filled with short answers after the loss, the most visibly upset and frustrated he has been in the past two seasons.

He said his confidence is “fine,” but he isn’t playing like it. He’s playing like a guy who isn’t sure whether he’ll be protected in the pocket and really isn’t sure whether he’ll have an open receiver. His numbers suggest significant regression this season – 10 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and a 76.9 rating after he had 26 touchdowns, nine picks and a 95.6 rating last season in the same system, surrounded by most of the same personnel.

He’s still a franchise quarterback. He’s still the future of this team. He can still be great. He still has four game-winning drives this season, and maybe he has a fifth Sunday if the perfect deep pass he put on tight end Delanie Walker isn’t kicked out of Walker’s hands on the sideline.

More:Best and worst from the Titans' loss to the Cardinals

The Titans’ window is now, because the AFC South next season is going to include Deshaun Watson quarterbacking the Houston Texans, Andrew Luck quarterbacking the Indianapolis Colts and perhaps Eli Manning quarterbacking the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can’t blow an 8-4 start and not make the postseason in a division as injury-riddled as the AFC South is this season.

That means you have to beat the 3-10-but-resurgent 49ers and their quarterback of the future, Jimmy Garoppolo. And that means Mularkey, Robiskie and Mariota have to figure out a way to produce some offense.

More:Titans report card: Mariota, offense flatline in second half of loss to Cardinals

It seems that Mariota would benefit from some tempo, at least as a change-up, some quick passing to get in a rhythm. It seems the Titans’ running game could benefit from early passing success as well, as it did in a win over the Houston Texans. Titans general manager Jon Robinson has built this roster around physical football, and balance and effective play-action are best friends to a quarterback. But the Titans have the versatility to do different things.

And Mariota really can bother defenses as a running threat, but you can’t have a steady diet of that in this league. And he might not be physically up to it this week anyway. He’s going to have to win this game, and stop this whole thing from going south, with his head and his arm.

Reach Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.