Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans set stage for battle of rookie quarterbacks

TAMPA -- Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston are enjoying the hype surrounding the regular season opener between Tennessee and Tampa Bay Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.

But both quarterbacks know it's not going to define their careers.

A lot of pundits and fans are billing it as the Mariota vs. Winston bowl and the determining factor in who got the draft right between their respective teams. The Bucs selected Winston with the first overall pick, and Tennessee chose Mariota second.

"I think people will continue to debate 'one or two,'" Mariota said. "I think for us, we're just focused on doing our best with our teams and what we have to take care of. It doesn't matter who the opponent is, we just want to focus on what our objectives are as an offense and move forward."

Winston wholeheartedly agrees.

"It's not about us. It's about our teams. It's the Bucs versus the Titans," Winston said. "I'd rather the headline be the score than something about individual players."

The two Heisman Trophy winners worked out together in San Diego before the combine and the draft. Mariota said they had a congenial relationship, and he was impressed with Winston's work ethic.

They will probably be linked together for the rest of their careers because they are a one-two draft com

bination, but Mariota insists he is not competing against Winston.

"I learned a long time ago not to compare myself to anyone else and my dad always said just focus on what you are doing, find ways to get better and the rest will take care of itself," Mariota said. "I think Jameis is a great player. I think he will have a great career, I think we're going to just focus on what we've got to do within our teams and do our best to be the best players we can be."

Winston won the Heisman in 2013 in leading FSU to a national title and the so-called experts said he was more NFL ready than Mariota because he played in a pro-style offense.

Mariota, meanwhile, won the Heisman last year but played mainly in the spread offense at Oregon. Critics said it would take him awhile to learn how to take the ball under center.

Titans head coach Ken Whisenhunt said that hasn't been a problem.

"I didn't feel like it was going to be an issue, but to say it would have gone as smoothly as it has, (I) probably didn't expect that," Whisenhunt said. "He looks comfortable under center and has made the transition quite well, so we'll see. He's worked very hard and we've certainly been excited by what we've seen."

The Winston-Mariota matchup is generating most of the headlines but another interesting battle will be Tennessee's defensive coordinator, Dick LeBeau, who at age 78 is as energetic as ever and still considered a genius in his craft.

"Coach LeBeau loves the game and he's made a lot of great contributions to this game. I think he's really focused on trying to get our defense to play better than what we played last year," Whisenhunt said.

There has been a lot of speculation that both defenses will be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at their opposing rookie quarterback because that's what you do to rookie quarterbacks.

Bucs head coach Lovie Smith said he is not buying that.

"There are two rookie quarterbacks this week that are playing," Smith said. "So much has been made of that. I just know what we are doing. I assume as you look at defensive football 101 -- rookie quarterback, throw everything at him. You have to be careful about that sometimes. We're going to play our defense. We're going to play a lot of good quarterbacks this year. Of course (Mariota) is one of them."

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans set stage for battle of rookie quarterbacks ."