NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Malik Willis meandered his way through a lot of Titans' training camp practices the last two years, looking nothing like the quarterback who led the Packers to an impressive win over his old team at Nissan Stadium Sunday.
Does his work in leading Green Bay to two wins subbing for Jordan Love mean he’s way more than two Titans regimes believed? I’m hardly willing to get caught in the moment and go there.
But he sure executed a well-tailored Matt LaFleur game plan great in a 30-14 Titans loss.
A guy Brian Callahan, Ran Carthon and Chad Brinker didn’t want on their roster and would have cut if the Packers didn’t emerge with an offer of a seventh-round pick shredded up their vaunted defense and helped drop them to 0-3.
“He came in and executed the game plan,” Ernest Jones said. “We allowed him to run around, make his plays and we didn’t do enough to stop him. We expect better from us, we’ve got to be better. I can only speak from the defensive side of the ball, we’ve got to be better, there are holes on the defensive side of the ball. You won’t win football games like that. And that showed, so let’s switch this thing up.”
The Titans worked to put air in his balloon after the game. We heard much praise for Willis, who deserved it for a good game. But we also deserved some honesty. Here's a guy the franchise didn't think much of who picked them apart, who they weren't able to fluster or force into mistakes.
Willis connected on 13 of 19 passes for 202 yards and a TD for a 120.9 passer rating and ran six times for 73 yards and a score.
“It’s frustrating, but truth be told, that best-in-the-league (defense) statistic shit, I mean, it’s just, we’re not playing good football,” said Ernest Jones. “We’re not playing good football in the spots we need to be. We’re playing good football in the spots that we don’t.
“When the defense is needed, we’re not doing what we need to do. And we’ve got to get the ball. We haven’t gotten one single turnover.”
Said Jamal Adams: “He played his ass off. Respect to Malik.”
Across the stadium, the Packers were surely saying among themselves, thanks to Will Levis.
By Brian Callahan’s thinking, the QB did not make a major mistake. The coach categorized Levis’ pick-6 as the sort of regular interception that happens. But Levis sure seemed to telegraph what was coming when he tried to find DeAndre Hopkins on the right sideline and watched a premiere corner, Jaire Alexander, jump it and fly 35 yards for a TD that put Green Bay up 17-7.
Levis has a league-leading eight turnovers through three games – a number that is not survivable. He lost a fumble when he was overwhelmed by Kingsley Enagbare, who destroyed Nicholas Petit-Frere, on a rush late in the quarter and threw a late pick in desperation mode when Xavier McKinney was on Calvin Ridley.
Petit-Frere was passive in pass protection last week against the Jets. That play got him benched in favor of Jaelyn Duncan.
Asked Nicholas Petit-Frere if he thinks RT is his job right now. #Titans pic.twitter.com/hYlnrMBFtq
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) September 22, 2024
He took eight sacks, seven in the second half. So he was helpless at points.
“We tried to keep guys in to help, we tried to keep seven and eight in protection,” Callahan said. “Some of it was good, some of it didn't work as well. We lost some one-on-ones, and that's ultimately what happened a few times. We got ourselves into some third-and-longs in a spot where I didn't feel like just calling a quick game on third-and-14 just to get the ball out.
“I was trying to be competitive. The game wasn't over. And so, we were in some tough spots for pass protection in general, when you're in third-and-12, and 13, and 14. It's difficult. Tried to call a couple of screens and those didn't get off.”
Petit-Frere said he experienced a similar dip at Ohio State and managed to work his way out of it. The only reason he may have a chance to do that in the weeks to come is because the Titans have so few alternatives.
He and Peter Skoronski both expressed a degree of embarrassment for Levis taking 15 sacks so far.
“That’s a good way to describe it, it’s like a waterfall,” Skoronski said. “…When we get in those pass rush situations we’ve still got to block, we can’t say, ‘Oh, well these situations suck.’
“We deserve every bit of shit that is coming towards us and there will be a lot of it. We’re not going to point fingers. It’s this five and we’ve got to be better. Eight sacks is never, ever, ever excusable.”
There are issues everywhere: The pass protection is a root cause, but in the first half Levis went down once and was still just seven-for-10 for 66 yards and the run game managed 2.4 yards per carry as the Titans had the ball for just 10:52.
Tennessee knew it would have to slow the run, that a successful run game would be mandatory to set Willis up for success. And Green Bay ran for 188 yards on 37 carries, 5.1 an attempt with a bunch of missed tackles on those and on short passes that turned into big gains.
Levis threw 15 more passes than Willis and completed 13 more. But the Titans’ quarterback’s yards per attempt was 3 yards fewer, 7.6 to 10.6.
Callahan stresses that Levis needs to master the mundane, choosing safe passes and managing games wisely while minimizing mistakes. But the guy they traded away for pennies, who everyone close to the team is certain is a lesser player – me at the front of the line – who did that and won.
One game, one Sunday, early in the careers of Callahan, Levis and Willis.
But it's a loss that covers 5.9 percent of the season and kept the Titans from their first win, that cranks up the fan doubt about the coach and the quarterback, that makes people even more impatient, that could begin the trickle of disinterest.
We don’t know where this loss will rank in the team’s annals, but it is possible it could ultimately stack up to ones to Ryan Leaf and Johnny Manziel, though Willis lacks their draft pedigree. If it doesn’t it will be because Willis winds up under someone like LaFleur rather than Todd Downing or Callahan.
He was not suited for their offenses.
Watson goes up and comes down with it!#GBvsTEN pic.twitter.com/9puVb3LN2o
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 22, 2024
But when Mike Vrabel and Todd Downing had to turn to Willis as a rookie for three starts in 2022 he was so bad the franchise went and got Josh Dobbs off Detroit’s practice squad and rode with him for the final two games of the season with a playoff spot on the line.
A year later he replaced an injured Ryan Tannehill in London. With the Titans in desperate time-saving mode, he was fighting for yards on the sideline rather than getting out of bounds, showing zero game sense.
While he showed modest improvement, his bar was quite low.
The Titans drafted him in the third round in 2022, trading up using a fourth-round pick.
So they got poor play out of him, couldn't turn him into a backup quality guy and decided they needed to sign Mason Rudolph to a one-year, $2.87 million contract. Then they turned the third- and fourth-round picks into a seventh with the trade.
Now they’ve been beaten by him.
Could that pick have gone any worse?