Marcus Mariota (QB, ATL) - Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 2

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 9% of Leagues

ANALYSIS: The Saints rallied, Atlanta lost, and Marcus Mariota played mediocre-to-good football. Nothing to be too surprised about, but something to exploit this weekend ahead of the Week 2 slate of games if you decided you'd stream your starter at the quarterback position.

No, I'm not talking about picking Jameis Winston off the WW (though you should, as he has his own WW post this week). I'm talking about Freshest Falcon Marcus Mariota. The veteran, now into his eighth year in the NFL and starting for a new franchise--his third--didn't have a bad debut to the 2022 season.

Mariota finished the week (pending MNF) as the 12th-best quarterback with his 18.8 FP against the Saints. Again, nothing remarkable but good enough to have me interested in how he keeps developing his game in Atlanta as the season progresses. The truth is that Mariota got little to no help on Sunday. He completed 20 of 33 pass attempts for 215 yards but none of those receptions ended in the End Zone with the QB dropping a goose egg in the TD department.

I might be alone on this thought, but this type of performance screams "positive regression to the mean". That should come soon enough. Mariota was the only QB with 33+ attempts yesterday who didn't throw a pass for a touchdown, and that will definitely change in a positive way for him. On the other hand, Mariota helped his performance rushing the rock 12 times for an extraordinary 72 yards and a score on the ground.

Had it not been for the lack of touchdowns and his two fumbles (ugh), Mariota could have easily entered the top-5 realm at the position in Week 1 (say, with a score nearing 25 FP). That's probably closer to Mariota's ceiling than the norm and what we should expect, but Mariota should be a must-roster player for those in the slightest of deep leagues, let a lone a must-start QB in two-QB leagues and other formats like that.

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