Will Levis' Usage Suggests Titans' Verdict Is In

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Titans are taking the long road with Will Levis, giving him a season to let him work through the struggles of a young quarterback and learn everything they can about him to determine exactly what they have.

But their fifth game of the season, Sunday’s 20-17 loss to the Colts at Nissan Stadium, made me feel like their verdict is in.

CaptionWill Levis/ courtesy Tennessee Titans

The game was loaded with short passes, checkdowns, and hot reads. This super-safe approach suggests a lack of trust in a guy with a big arm and a quick release.

It says to me they’ve decided what his is—maybe temporarily while they continue to try to figure out their woeful passing offense, but more likely for good.

Brian Callahan would get no benefit from admitting as much.

“Oh I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “I think there are a lot of things that he can do better. There are things that I can do to help him better. And then around him we can play better too. I think that we’re really close, and there are a lot of things that we do well, and there are a lot of things that we just haven’t got over the hump on when it comes to losing one-score games.

“We’ve lost three of them now, where we are in position to have a chance to win them and we haven’t done it. That’s not all a Will thing either, there are things that I can do to help him. We just haven’t been there yet. We’re tight, we’re close, we’ve got to play better, there is no doubt. He’s got to play better, but there are things that I think are encouraging and positive about it as well.”

Ninety-five passing yards against a pass defense that came into the game ranked fourth-worst doesn’t feel real close. Passing is down, but the next lowest starter was Pittsburgh’s Justin Fields with 145 passing yards on 14 of 24 passing, in a win. Sixteen QBs were over 200 yards. Four were over 300.

Levis has topped out at 260 and is averaging 140, which is a bit skewed as he left the Miami game pretty quickly after injuring his shoulder.

Levis was seventh in intended air yards (9.1) in games played so far in Week 6, per Next Gen Stats. But he averaged 5.9 yards a completion and 3.5 yards an attempt (29th). He completed three passes over 10 yards and one over 20.

In an evaluation season, with a quarterback whose best previous work has been with deep stuff, wouldn’t it be better to cut him loose?

“There are definitely calls that go down the field that don’t get thrown down the field,” Callahan said. “There was a conservative nature in some of the runs because we were running the ball well. But yeah, we can just drop back and throw it down the field more. I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that.”

They’ve got to reevaluate the whole mix: The determination to run Callahan’s system and how it fits Levis, how to get to what Levis does best, if completion percentage points are worth fewer lower-percentage deep, or even intermediate, shots that Levis has thrived on in the past.

Four total completions over 10 yards? He didn’t throw well but he also didn’t have enough people open often enough and they were not helping him. Calvin Ridley didn’t catch one of eight targets.

“They used cautious, safe and high-percentage throws,” said Blake Beddingfield, the former Titans scout who writes for this site. “I feel they wanted to get Levis in a rhythm and then expand the route tree as he showed the ability to consistently make throws. They also wanted to use the run game which was smart, so the horizontal throws were designed to take a safety out of the box for the run game.”

None of it worked well enough to get a second win.

The Titans gained 41 net yards in the fourth quarter. Levis was three-for-10 for 23 yards with an interception on a bad deep attempt for Ridley. (See above.)That produced a 0.0 passer rating.

Tennessee was shut out in the fourth quarter, in which they’ve now scored 12 points all season. Five teams scored more than 12 points in the fourth quarter in Week 6 before Jets-Bills Monday night.

Something has to change. Boxing in Levis hasn't worked. Yet it seems like what they've decided is necessary with him. Which can't be what they want for the long run.