One old world cliche to remember when watching Will Levis' final seven games of the Titans season

Will Levis is going to finish the 2024 regular season as the starting quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. But once January arrives, the franchise will evaluate his future as their guy.

And I think that they, as well as their fans, would be wise not to consider his entire professional career when doing so.

Act I

The first two years of Will Levis' NFL career can be easily broken up into three acts. Act I was his first 8 games as a rookie in 2023. It was the debut of Tennessee's 2nd round pick earlier than they ever anticipated, thanks to a Ryan Tannehill injury in London.

Levis stepped in and began his career with an unbelievable bang. Everybody remembers the four-touchdown performance at home against the Falcons. It remains his magnum opus as a pro. He did enough as a rookie to earn another shot as the guy in his second year.

Act II

Act II of NFL Will Levis was his first 5 games of 2024. This was easily the worst of Levis. As a rookie, his Turnover Worthy Play rate was through the roof, and he managed to get away with it most of the time. He was getting lucky.

In September of 2024, His propensity to play erratic and reckless football caught up with him in a big way, and it cost his team dearly. It was a terrible start to the year for the young passer trying to prove he'd taken a "Year 2 leap".

When he got hurt in Week 4 against Miami, many fans were relieved to get a glimpse of backup Mason Rudolph. And while it wasn't particularly thanks to Rudolph himself, winning their first game of the year that night and scoring 30+ points for the first time in 1000+ days was a horrendous look for Levis narratively.

After the Titans bye, he played the fifth and final game of Act II against the Colts, and it was a bad one! Against Indianapolis he wasn't healthy enough to return, and it showed. He went to the bench to heal up, and we didn't see him again for nearly a month.

Act III

Then began Act III of the Will Levis experience, which is where we find ourselves now. This is, health-permitting, the final nine game stretch of Levis's rookie meal ticket as currently constituted. Everybody understands that he's safe until the end of this year, and then very not safe unless he does enough between now and then to prove he deserves to keep going.

The first two games of this phase for Levis have passed, and he's been a different player than we saw in Acts I and II. As he put it on Wednesday with the local media, "Well I haven't thrown underhand or chest-passed it, so that's an improvement". Well said, Will.

Visiting the Chargers and then hosting the Vikings, the Titans lost two games in which the offense provided cause for optimism. Signs of definitive trending in the right direction, both for the unit and for the QB, have been clear to see.

Forgive and Forget

"Forgive and forget" is one of the most common idioms in the English language. It actually dates back to the 1300s and was a commonly understood proverb by the mid-1500s, which is a fact you didn't care to learn but now have. Why am I telling you this? Only because I'm about to apply it to the Tennessee Titans.

I was going to stack this article full of Levis stats and metrics from each of his acts to bolster my point, but I came to the conclusion it would largely be a waste of my time. If you've followed the Titans at all, you roughly know the numbers. In order to really make this argument, I need to appeal to the narrative of Will Levis. This is about how we perceive the work he's done, and the macro trends of his career. The numbers absolutely matter, but listing them all verbatim here isn't necessary.

He was statistically inconsistent in Act I, but the highs were very high and the lows were easy to attribute to a horrible situation for a rookie to find themselves in. Most importantly, it felt good. He passed the eye test, and although he seemed better than his numbers indicated, he was clearly worth a longer look in 2024.

In Act II, he truly was not as bad on tape as he appeared to be statistically. But it felt awful. That awful feeling was born almost entirely of a large handful of particularly catastrophic plays, which cannot be waved away. They matter! A lot! But his play on a down-to-down basis wasn't as bad as it seemed when you watched it.

This idea of forgiving and forgetting has perhaps never been more applicable to a situation. The first two acts of Will's career are undeniably noisy. There are a lot of important circumstances that need to be understood in order to properly evaluate what's gone on. And that's not to say a good chunk of it hasn't been quite bad, because it absolutely has. He may very well just not be a good football player. But some of it has been quite good, and has shown indications of cornerstone traits that can be built upon.

When Levis was struggling in the beginning of 2024, many folks were guilty of clinging too long to the highlights of 2023. And if he continues to play well at the end of this season (currently coming off of two very promising performances), people will undoubtedly cling too long to the woes of early 2024. The cycle should be broken. We should all agree: the Will Levis we're getting right now is the Levis we're going to know.

The gauntlet is thrown down. The excuses minimized. The first two acts of his career were 12 games started and finished as a pro. He's no longer operating in a system that is brand new to him, and the offense around him is clearly settling into their groove. They have clear OL deficiencies and could have a better set of weapons, but his situation is no longer like it was in 2023. This is a serviceable enough platform for him to at least demonstrate he's worthy of investing further in. He has 9 games to do so.

The bottom line is this: we need to forgive Act II, forget Act I, and judge Will Levis as an NFL quarterback based on his third (and potentially final) act as a Titan.