Marcus Mariota was close to quitting. Now, with Jalen Hurts hurt, he might have to save the Eagles’ season.

The two-and-a-half weeks separating the day the Atlanta Falcons released Marcus Mariota and the day the Eagles signed him was enough time for him to consider a course of action he’d never contemplated before. Everything had gone and ended so terribly for him in Atlanta: his lousy 13-game stint as the Falcons’ starting quarterback, coach Arthur Smith benching him for Desmond Ridder, his decision to end his season by having knee surgery, the anonymous quote from an NFL agent that accused him of quitting on the Falcons.

He toted all that baggage and more with him to Philadelphia when the Eagles targeted him to be Jalen Hurts’ backup. And now that Hurts’ dislocated right middle finger raises the possibility that they might have to call on Mariota in Monday’s wild-card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Eagles ought to thank their lucky stars that the emotional burden Mariota now bears is lighter than it was last season. It would be bad enough if Hurts was in too much pain to play. It will be bad enough if he aggravates the injury Monday and can’t continue. It would be worse if Mariota were in the same frame of mind that he was when he left the Falcons.

“Every team that I’ve been on, I’ve given my all,” Mariota said Friday. “I always try to do that every single day. That never changed, even toward the end there in Atlanta. We were all on the same page with what was going on with my knee, and for things to come out the way that they did, it was hurtful and made me question if I really wanted to keep going.”

So he thought about retiring before the Eagles called?

Yep.

“I’d be lying if I said no,” he said. “With how everything transpired, I was pretty over it. You put your trust in a lot of people, and when things go sour and the game doesn’t feel the same and you lose that passion for it, it’s not very fun.

“I started working with some sports psychologists. I was battling those types of things. I’m still battling. I mean, that’s part of playing football, I think, is being able to handle the mental side of it.”

He had struggled in that regard near the end of his tenure in Atlanta. His wife, Kiyomi, gave birth by cesarean section to the couple’s first child, Makaia, in December 2022. The next day, Smith called Mariota into his office and told him that Ridder was taking over at quarterback. Mariota decided immediately to undergo an operation to repair a torn meniscus. His season was over, by his choice. Then came the blind quote about him quitting on the Falcons. Then came his thoughts, after Atlanta released him in February, about quitting football for good.

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“There was a lot of different feelings going on,” he said. “I’m holding my newborn daughter, and you’re thinking about different plays. I’m sitting there, looking at Makaia, being very happy and joyous, and then I’m thinking about, ‘Well, on this third-and-10, I shouldn’t have thrown this’ or ‘This pick I had in two-minute …’ That’s not right. There’s something wrong with that.”

The one-year, $5 million contract that the Eagles offered was an alluring enough enticement that Mariota decided to keep playing. His arrival stirred up the memory of the infatuation with him here in 2015, when Chip Kelly hoped to move heaven and earth to move up and get him in that year’s draft, but that history had no bearing on Mariota’s choice. What mattered was his relationship with Alex Tanney, the Eagles’ quarterbacks coach, who had backed up Mariota for a year with the Tennessee Titans. That connection led to a sit-down in March with Tanney and Nick Sirianni, a meeting that convinced Mariota that the Eagles’ read-option-heavy system would fit his skill set.

It didn’t look like a fit in training camp. Mariota was terrible — hesitant in his decision-making, wild with his throws, inspiring no confidence that, if Hurts got hurt, the Eagles had a backup competent and capable enough to win them a game or two. “Camp didn’t go great,” he said. “I knew it. I think a lot of people knew it. Mentally, I was just not all there.” It wasn’t until the midpoint of the regular season, he said, that he was. He started making solid, positive plays in practice, and the team was rolling to a 10-1 record — remember when the Eagles had a 10-1 record? — and “you just fall in love with it again.”

Good for him. Good timing for the Eagles. Now Hurts really is injured, and it doesn’t take much to envision his right hand smacking someone’s helmet Monday night as he follows through on a pass, that middle finger dislocating again, and Sirianni having to call on a quarterback who 11 months ago wasn’t certain he wanted to be a quarterback anymore. Would be a hell of a thing if Marcus Mariota finally played a big game for the Eagles under those circumstances. Would be a hell of a thing if, somehow, he managed to win it.

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