AP

Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota has been sacked an NFL-high nine times this season, but he won’t throw his offensive line under the bus.

Instead, Mariota says all those sacks are proof that he needs to get better at reading defenses and getting rid of the ball quickly when the pressure is coming.

“That’s all on me,” Mariota said, via Paul Kuharsky of ESPN. “I can do a lot better job of helping those guys with protections, in terms of cadence, getting the ball out, not taking unnecessary sacks. Everything that happened is definitely on me. . . . The pass rush is relentless, it’s every down. You’ve got to get used to it. I’ll do a better job for sure.”

Titans center Brian Schwenke, however, says the offensive linemen know that they need to do a better job.

“No, that’s not true,” Schwenke said. “It means he’s a good teammate. Obviously, you could watch the film and know it’s not all on him, or any of it’s on him. You get a good person with good character, he’s going to say that. He should say that, it’s a good thing to say.”

So Mariota wasn’t being scrupulously honest when he claimed all the blame for the nine sacks he’s taken. But sometimes scrupulous honestly takes a backseat to being a good teammate. Mariota is only a 21-year-old rookie, but he’s already taking care of his linemen with the savvy of a veteran.