Week 10 Reactions: Remember This Titan

On a day when Drew Brees joined Brett Favre and Peyton Manning as the only quarterbacks in league history to throw at least 450 touchdowns and Philip Rivers became the ninth quarterback to reach 300, the most impressive player under center was Titans second-year quarterback Marcus Mariota, who threw for 295 yards and four touchdowns in a 47-25 dismantling of the Packers. Running back DeMarco Murray has been given plenty of credit for his excellent season, which continued Sunday thanks to 123 rushing yards and a touchdown, as well as a 10-yard touchdown pass, but it's time for applaud Mariota for what he's done.

One of the most impressive aspects of Mariota's season is how well he spreads the ball around, particularly since he doesn't have a singular dominant wideout. Ben Roethlisberger has Antonio Brown, Andrew Luck has T.Y. Hilton, Matt Ryan has Julio Jones, Andy Dalton has A.J. Green, Jameis Winston has Mike Evans and Mariota has...Kendall Wright?

Tight end Delanie Walker seems to be Mariota's go-to option, as we saw Sunday when he caught eight of 10 targets for 114 yards, plus a 10-yard touchdown reception thrown by Murray, but it was the first time all season that Walker accounted for more than 85 yards. In fact, the only Titan coming into this weekend with a 100-yard game was Wright, who had 133 at home against the Browns in Week 6. And just to accentuate how unlikely that was, his games surrounding that outburst were a nine-yard showing against the Dolphins in Week 5 and a 12-yard performance against the Colts in Week 7.

Wright was along those lines Sunday, as he caught two of three targets for a team-low eight receiving yards, though one of those catches was a touchdown. Mariota's other touchdowns throws went to tight end Anthony Fasano (nine yards), wide receiver Rishard Matthews (32 yards) and wideout Tajae Sharpe (33 yards). The day marked Mariota's eighth game with at least two touchdowns, fourth with at least three and third with four, and remarkably, only Mathews has multiple touchdown receptions in a game this season (Week 9 against the Chargers when he had two). Speaking of Matthews, he has scored four touchdowns in the last three games, though he has just 13 receptions on 19 targets for 164 yards over that span.

Pairing a quarterback and a wide receiver or tight end is a popular strategy, particularly in DFS, but Mariota seems to be an exception, as his ability to spread the ball around makes it tough to find the right players to pair with him. And let's not forget that he's also a capable runner, as he came into Week 10 with the second-most quarterback rushing yards this year. All in all, Mariota has provided a pretty nice return for a quarterback with a pre-season ADP of 127.06, with 17 other quarterbacks generally going ahead of him in fantasy drafts.

The top name on that quarterback list is Cam Newton, who had a fairly good game against the Chiefs on Sunday, though the Panthers ultimately choked away a 17-3 fourth quarter lead to lose 20-17. Newton, who threw for 261 yards and a touchdown while also rushing for 54 yards and another score, has long been known for what he can do with his feet, and he added a new record to his resume Sunday, as he became the first player in league history to pass for at least 20,000 yards and rush for at least 3,000 yards in his first six seasons in the NFL. Part of that stat is particularly impressive on its own, as Newton (27 years and 186 days) became the fifth-youngest quarterback to reach 20,000 passing yards, trailing only Drew Bledsoe (26 years, 253 days), Peyton Manning (26 years, 266 days), Matthew Stafford (26 years, 282 days) and Dan Marino (27 years, three days). As a quarterback long spoken about because of his ability to run the ball (particularly by fantasy owners who have had Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams the last few seasons), Newton's passing may be the most underrated part of his game, more so when you consider his lack of superstar wideouts in that time. Imagine the numbers if Newton or Mariota had what Winston has in Tampa Bay or Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh.

Speaking of "imagine if," imagine if anyone could figure out the Eagles' backfield before their games actually started. After getting only nine carries in the last two games combined, which he turned into 25 yards (and two touchdowns), Ryan Mathews was given the keys to the car Sunday against the Falcons, rushing 19 times for 109 yards and two touchdowns while also adding 30 receiving yards on two receptions and a two-point conversion. Meanwhile, Darren Sproles, who had 28 carries and 18 targets in the last two games, rushed twice for 19 yards. On the plus side, he still caught eight of 10 targets for 57 receiving yards, but fantasy owners who thought they were getting a potentially huge game thanks to his rushing attempts and activity in the passing game were left wanting significantly more.

One running back who certainly left all of his fantasy owners elated was Cowboys rookie Ezekiel Elliott, who rushed 21 times for 114 yards and two touchdowns while also catching both of his targets for 95 yards and another score in the Cowboys' 35-30 win over the Steelers in Pittsburgh. As if Elliott's 82-yard screen pass catch-and-run touchdown in the first quarter wasn't impressive enough, he put his final stamp on Sunday's game with a 32-yard touchdown run with nine seconds left in the fourth quarter, which came just 33 game-seconds after Ben Roethlisberger's 15-yard fake-spike touchdown pass to Antonio Brown put the Steelers up 30-29 (the two-point conversion attempt failed). Elliott is now up to 1,005 rushing yards for the season, which means he has joined Eric Dickerson and Adrian Peterson as the only players in NFL history to reach 1,000 rushing yards in their first nine games. There was plenty of fantasy optimism for Elliott before the season -- his ADP was 9.85, after all -- and it's great to see a player live up to the hype so early in his career.