Titans' Zach Mettenberger: 'I'm not going down without a fight to the death'

Tennessee Titans quarterback Zach Mettenberger says he will do everything he can to ensure the team's top draft pick, Marcus Mariota, doesn't beat him out for the starting job.

"I don't (know) what the mindset is, but at the end of the day I can just control what I do and I'm extremely confident in myself, almost to a fault,” Mettenberger recently told ESPN's Adam Caplan. “But people who know me know I'm not going down without a fight to the death."

Mettenberger's intentions are admirable, but he's facing an uphill battle. The 2014 sixth-round pick showed some promise as a rookie, but he didn't win a game. Mariota's upside is so high and the Titans have so much invested in him that the team will surely stack the deck to ensure the second overall pick starts in Week 1.

The best-case scenario for the Titans is Mettenberger pushes Mariota to truly earn the starting job and then either serves as a long-term backup or becomes trade bait.