National Football League

Titans, Redskins discuss plans for drafting QBs at owners meetings

Published Mar. 24, 2015 9:45 p.m. ET

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With the NFL Draft little more than a month away, teams may be starting to tip their hands a bit.

And, lo and behold, all of the talk if focused on quarterbacks, beginning with team selecting No. 2 overall.

If the Tennessee Titans use that second pick to select Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, coach Ken Whisenhunt says he expects him to be the team's No. 1 quarterback right away. Picks that high aren't drafted to stand around and watch.

"You talk about taking a quarterback at the first or second pick, you're probably going to play that guy," Whisenhunt told the media when AFC coaches met with reporters on Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings in Phoenix.

"As far as whether he's ready to do that, we're still in the process of evaluating what we feel about him. I like what I've seen so far. He's a talented player."

Tampa Bay has the No. 1 pick in the draft, and Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is the odds-on favorite to be the Bucs' choice.

Just where the prolific Mariota will land is an open question. A number of factors -- mostly revolving around him playing in a spread offense system in college, his ability to shift to taking the snap under center, and his whether he can read defenses at the pro level -- have him slipping in many mock selections.

Whisenhunt said he's had a thorough look at Mariota.

"He's done a nice job in the time I've spent with him," Whisenhunt said. "We spent time with him in the classroom. We worked him out. He exhibits a lot of the qualities that successful quarterbacks have. He doesn't turn the ball over a lot, is accurate when he throws it, can extend the play. His team gravitates toward him, you can see that. He has a lot of those things that those quarterbacks who have been successful in the league have."

Tennessee, 2-14 last season in Whisenhunt's first season, already has a young quarterback in Zach Mettenberger, who started six games as a rookie.

The team also could look to address other needs.

Now Whisenhunt turns his attention to Winston.

"We haven't spent as much time with Jameis as we have with Marcus," Whisenhunt said. "We'll go to his pro day next week and then we'll get a private workout with him."

So far, Whisenhunt said he hasn't heard of any teams that might want to trade into the No. 2 spot.

"I think everybody's playing their cards pretty close to the vest right now," he said, "just like us."

Sitting a few picks behind the Titans are the Washington Redskins. They currently have Robert Griffin III penciled in as the starter, but Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy are also on the roster, and each of the three started at least four games for first-year head coach Jay Gruden last season.

Now Gruden is entering his second season, and his boss is first-year general manager Scot McCloughan. Could a new signal-caller be far behind?

"You never have enough [quarterbacks]," ESPN quoted McCloughan, whose team holds the fifth overall pick, as saying at the Phoenix meetings. "When I was in Green Bay we had Brett Favre, who won three MVPs. Every year we drafted a Matt Hasselbeck and Aaron Brooks. It wasn't that early, but we still took quarterbacks."

According to the report, that means if Mariota is sitting there when the fifth pick comes up, Washington may grab him. That despite the fact the team did not have a first-round pick in either of the last two drafts because they traded them to St. Louis to move up to the No. 2 spot in the 2012 draft -- to select Griffin.

"No one will be handed a job from my standpoint," McCloughan said. "You have to earn it. That's what the NFL is about. I don't have any ties with any of the players. I didn't draft them. So I'm coming in -- prove it to me. Prove to me you deserve to be on the field. That's the way it should be in the NFL."

"I'm walking in from the outside saying, 'OK, I've been around a world championship team,'" added McCloughan, who worked in Seattle, had a hand in drafting players such as Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman, and who was with the team when it won the Super Bowl two seasons ago. "I've helped build another one that made it there. I have a feeling what it's supposed to look like.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report