NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Early in the season, Will Levis made a strong case he shouldn’t be the Titans’ quarterback beyond this year. Then for a reasonable stretch, he looked as if there was cause to believe he could be.

Now…

After some imprecise decisions in the miserable loss to the Jaguars, he melted and was benched in a 37-27 loss to Cincinnati. And again, he looks like a hard guy to pin hopes on.

Will Levis and Ran Carthon
Will Levis hugs Ran Carthon/ Angie Flatt

Ultimately the team will decide based on his full body of work and the cost of other options considering just how much better it believes one can be. But when the Titans assess, they’re going to see the good games were not so good as to offset how bad the bad games were, and that list will likely be topped with this one.

Levis lost a fumble, then misread a receiver on interception No. 1, saw an inaccurate pass go off the hands of his target for interception No. 2 and misread the defense on interception No. 3. When he left the game in the middle of the third quarter, he’d connected on eight of 12 passes for 89 yards. His 49.0 passer rating was a career-low for a game in which he had more than six attempts. 

He had no argument when his QB coach Bo Hardegree told him he was out of the game. And one of his receivers said the better play of Mason Rudolph – 21 of 26 for 209 yards, two touchdowns, one pick and a 109.8 passer rating that was better than Joe Burrow’s 95.7 – resulted from the same stuff Levis was being asked to do.

“Same offense, same plays, same game plan,” said Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. “Mason is different. He’s going to talk differently. He’s different. But nothing (changed.)”

“Wasn't his day,” Brian Callahan said. “He had a couple of bad picks, put us in some tough spots. So, I made the decision to sit him down and try to give us a little bit of a spark. And I think we had a series there, it was like three turnovers in (eight) plays or something…

“Those are things that you have to do sometimes for a quarterback when they're struggling a bit and he was struggling. So, we'll see moving forward. We got to watch the tape and see what we can correct and how we can do it better. But it definitely wasn't his day.”

That’s not something you have to do for a franchise quarterback in career start No. 19, and while growth is not linear, it’s fair to say Levis is proving he’s not one. There should be mandatory minimums at this stage, and the effort against the Bengals didn’t come close to meeting them.

“A series of unfortunate events,” Levis said. “Four of those last five possessions, like the turnovers, you’re rarely not going to get pulled when you turn the ball over four times. So, I mean, I understand that. I got to watch the tape and see how it all went down. I kind of already know how a couple of them happened. The last one (the pick-6) was definitely the most disappointing just because it's a look that I was ready for and that I was ready to launch, and the guy made a good play. And yeah, it sucks. It wasn't my day.”

Levis’ best quality is his ability to push the ball downfield. In his first three games back from three games out with a sprained shoulder, he had an elite yards per attempt mark of 9.59 despite significant pass pressure. But in losses to Washington, Jacksonville and Cincinnati since, that number has been a pedestrian 5.79. For context: Entering Week 15, Lamar Jackson led the league at 8.7 while Cooper Rush was 36th at 5.5 and Levis was 27th at 6.7.

NWI said he still needed to talk to Levis to tell him he’s got his back, urge him to keep going, and remind him that non-quarterbacks don’t understand much of what he’s going through.

“This game doesn’t define us,” NWI said. “It’s a game we get to play. And just play free within that.

Even if Levis rebounds in the final three at Indianapolis, at Jacksonville and against Houston, his inconsistency presents a major concern. 

My feeling is that Amy Adams Strunk will choose continuity and stick with Brian Callahan after a shaky first season with a roster that has not been nearly as good as the team expected, and with Ran Carthon for a third year as GM and Chad Brinker for a second year as president of football operations (and third with the franchise). 

Whether they’ll be able to move forward with their current quarterback and expect to make the improvements that will be required for them to survive into 2026 is the huge question. And this game added to the body of work didn’t give them any cause to think he can.

Are the Titans heading for the free-agent market where Sam Darnold is in line to be the headliner and the rest of the crop will be reclamation projects? They need help to “catch” the Giants, Raiders and maybe others to get in draft range for Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward if they like the two quarterbacks regarded as the best prospects.

All those guys come with downsides too. Darnold will cost more than he’s worth. Sanders may be close to his ceiling at the college level. Ward’s got mechanical questions that could linger. 

It’s easy to want Levis out, the question is who’d be in. 

The Titans’ offense accounted directly for 7 points on Geno Stone’s 39-yard pick-6, Levis' fourth throw for a wrong-way TD this season. In all the Bengals scored 24 points off turnovers, 17 off Levis’.

So: Titans 27, Bengals points set up by turnovers 24. Cincinnati would have had 7 more but for Jordan Battle moving the ball from one hand to another and losing it at the 1 on what should have been a 61-yard scoring return. Instead, it rolled through the end zone for a Tennessee touchback.

The Tennessee defense was at a serious disadvantage, but it provided the resistance of a Pop Warner team, allowing the Bengals to convert 10 of 13 third downs. (The Titans’ season defensive third down percentage moved from 35.6 to 38.7 from this one result.)

And Burrow found himself ridiculous time as the pass rushers who wandered around hit him six times in 37 dropbacks, per press box statisticians. Harold Landry had the team’s one sack and T’Vondre Sweat stripped the ball and rumbled 30 yards with it, stiff-arming Alex Cappa along the way during one big Titans’ highlight.

Otherwise, in the pass-pressure department, it seemed the Titans were shooting for the world record at time allowed attempting to throw.

The list of Titans' issues has not changed from what it was early on. What they have cannot fix it. It seems, despite the big free-agency expenditures, they think it's primarily the people in uniform holding them back.

The quarterback is certainly included, Three turnovers in the last five games were manageable. Fourteen in the other six are unsustainable. We never know when a big dud might arrive. It's no way to live at the position thinking sometimes you'll have to bench him.

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