After falling way down the board during the 2023 NFL Draft, many felt that the Tennessee Titans got a steal with quarterback Will Levis at the top of the second round. Once thought to be in the running for the No. 1 overall pick, Levis seemed like the perfect succession plan for Ryan Tannehill, who the franchise and fan base knew could not carry this team to where they wanted to go.
Unfortunately, Levis' first two campaigns in the NFL have been a disaster, as he has won only five times in his 21 career starts. He has completed just 61.0% of his passes for 21 touchdowns and 16 interceptions, and he has fumbled the ball 17 times. Last year was so bad that the team only won three games all season and earned the first overall pick in the draft.
This offseason, the team added a handful of veteran quarterbacks to the roster who had a connection with head coach Brian Callahan, and with the No. 1 pick, the Titans selected Miami quarterback Cam Ward. The writing is on the wall for Levis in Tennessee, so Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports proposed that the Titans trade him to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"Tampa Bay has been fine riding with Kyle Trask at the No. 2 quarterback spot, but do the Bucs really want to risk falling out of a feasible NFC South race if the always-gutsy Baker Mayfield goes down?" Benjamin asked. "Levis is expendable in Tennessee after the Titans drafted Cam Ward, and he seems like a perfect fit to sit and learn from Mayfield, who shares some of his never-say-die spunk."
A deal like this could make sense because the Buccaneers need a legitimate backup, and Levis immediately lost his value with the Titans as soon as Ward was drafted. Because he and Mayfield have such similar playing styles, it could be the match made in heaven that Tennessee fans never saw come to fruition.
Titans Failed With Will Levis
The Tennessee Titans are keeping Will Levis around despite taking Cam Ward with the No. 1 overall pick to be the team's quarterback of the future.
Levis was drafted with the No. 33 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft by former general manager Ran Carthon and head coach Mike Vrabel, both of whom are no longer with the Titans.
With the Titans looking to put their past behind them, Bleacher Report analyst Brent Sobleski officially declared Levis as a failure for Tennessee.
"The Will Levis experiment failed. The Titans responded by doing the right thing and selecting Miami quarterback Cam Ward with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft," Sobleski wrote.
"Unlike other organizations in this year's draft, Tennessee understood that the longer a franchise waits to address the game's most important position, the further it falls behind everyone else. Ward still has to prove himself, of course. But he was worth the selection, giving the Titans the chance to actually compete in a conference that features Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Joe Burrow."
The Titans picked Levis knowing he was the No. 4 quarterback at best in his class that also had Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson all chosen within the top four picks. Tennessee didn't want to think about that this time around, taking the surefire best quarterback in the class in Ward.
Ward will now be compared to the entire league as opposed to the rookie class, which could make things harder. He's in the AFC, the conference that has most of the better quarterbacks in the NFL, so he will need to find a way to be better than those signal callers who have been excellent in the primes of their career.
