So far, this has hardly been what you would call a season to write home about for Marcus Mariota.
But the Las Vegas Raiders’ quarterback is still making a point of sending something else home to Hawaii this week, batches of aloha.
While he awaits his first NFL appearance of the season, Mariota, through his Motiv8 Foundation, will be distributing 250 backpacks stuffed with school supplies and a study guide to needy youngsters on Oahu and handing out packaged meals for 1,000.
Usually this time of the year, around his Oct. 30 birthday, the now 27-year old shares some of his good fortune by treating upwards of 1,000 kids to a University of Hawaii football game, round trip transportation and meal at Aloha Stadium.
But with pandemic restrictions in place, “He couldn’t do that, so Marcus wanted to find a way to still do something within the COVID-19 parameters for the kids at home,” said foundation spokesman Ed Nishioka.
Working through the Boys & Girls Club of Hawaii and sponsors Young’s Market Co., Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Ruby Tuesday Hawaii and Kalihi Rainbow Drive In, the backpacks and meals will be distributed Thursday and Friday to previously selected youth from Waianae, Nanakuli, Ewa Beach, the Windward side and Honolulu in drive-thrus.
“We are tremendously grateful to Marcus, the Motiv8Foundation (and sponsors) for this incredible gift for our children and teens,” said Paddy Kauhane, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hawaii. “These organizations are bringing joy at a time when it is so badly needed. They are our heroes.”
Mariota has had little to say about what has clearly been a most disappointing season to date, one whose frustration has no doubt been multiplied by the inability to get on the field.
As the Raiders hit the halfway point in their inaugural season in Las Vegas, Mariota’s visibility has, so far, been mostly limited to a cameo role in the Nissan “Heisman House” commercials.
After five years with the Tennessee Titans, who made him the second overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft, Mariota signed a two-year free-agent deal with the Raiders in March and was expected to compete with incumbent Derek Carr for the starting quarterback job.
Early in the August training camp head coach Jon Gruden praised Mariota as, “a dazzling playmaker with his feet” and the Raiders were excited about what Mariota could add to their offense.
But what started as a comeback from off-season shoulder and ankle surgery was further complicated by what the Raiders termed a “freak” training camp injury, a reported severe pectoral strain, the kind that can be particularly nagging for a quarterback.
Mariota spent the first three weeks of the season on the injured reserve list. But while he was taken off IR for October, he has yet to be game-activated and Carr has taken all the game snaps. Nathan Peterman has been listed as the No. 2 quarterback in the Raiders’ 4-3 start and there has been little mention of what the plans might be for Mariota.
While it has been a football season of setbacks for Mariota, characteristically it has not not kept him from continuing to make give-backs at home.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
