Will Levis had a nice 1st half in Chicago.
Then the wheels fell off completely after halftime.
Will is one intense dude. It's something that is instantly admirable about him as a Football Guy™️. Whether you're watching him play or speaking with him about his game, his fiery competitive nature is immediately evident.
Will is also very smart and a perfectionist, which is why I'm sure he recognizes this about himself. And I'm sure he realizes that hyper-competitiveness is a QB trait that can be both a blessing and a curse, something that you have to be careful with.
And in Week 1, Will Levis' relentless competitiveness was much more of a curse than a blessing for the Titans. In the end, it proved to be a liability. Here are three specific examples of where Levis must find balance in order to be successful going forward:
Be Willing To Be Boring
This was a theme we heard a lot from Brian Callahan and Will Levis this offseason. In the Callahan offense (and in most successful NFL passing offenses, for that matter) you must be willing to be boring a lot of the time. Find the underneath route or the dump-off. take the 2-3 yard gains. Dink and dunk down the field when the defense is letting you; or rather, when they're forcing you to.
It's something Levis worked on all summer, and it's something he demonstrated in the 1st half of this game. He was pretty boring! There was a deep shot that fell short of Calvin Ridley, an impressive TD pass to Chig Okonkwo. There were those moments you want to see. And the rest was largely boring.
Then in the 2nd half, some of the recklessness crept in...
Know When To Live To Fight Another Day
Levis has played recklessly before. It's a big part of the knock on his college tape, and why a top-10 physical talent like him fell into the 2nd round of the draft. The gunslinger mentality has simply been a part of the package.
And in the 1st half in Chicago, he gave us a proof-of-concept that he can be the boring, safe passer this Brian Callahan offense needs him to be much of the time. But as the game began to slip away from them, "Mr. Hyde" started to rear his ugly head.
The play that handed the game to Chicago on a silver platter came in the 4th quarter, When he threw a back-breaking pick-6. It was the play Levis alluded to in his press conference when he explained how brutal it was "having a 17 point lead and giving them the game".
"Yea, just a bonehead play." the Titans QB admitted. "Just, I think recency bias from getting away with it the last time I did it in a game, just trying to throw it in the dirt."
Levis was flushed out of the pocket on 3rd & 6 near midfield, and as he was being taken down by the pass rush, he flipped the ball in the direction of WR Tyler Boyd. Bears CB Tyrique Stevenson jumped the short pass and waltzed into the endzone to take Chicago's first lead of the game.
This is the kind of decision that costs you your job in the NFL if you make enough of them. He knows better, as he freely admitted postgame. But the freewheeling spirit that comes as a byproduct of his fiery competitiveness, his desire to do the most on every play, kept him from losing the battle for the sake of the war. It was a hero-ball move. And it ultimately cost his team an extremely winnable game.
Making the decision even worse was the fact that Chicago's offense had done nothing all afternoon. Practically all of their points came as a direct result of Titans mistakes; this chief amongst them. All Levis had to do was, as he put it in the locker room,"...just take the sack. Might be one of those times just to take the sack."
Your Availability Is Your Greatest Ability
A final note: did you catch Levis and his large heating pad on the sideline? If you watched the TV broadcast closely, you saw it. The announcers wouldn't stop talking about how they disapproved of how often Levis was willingly taking a beating on the ground.
At first, that brand of broadcast quip comes across as mildly annoying. "He's a big boy, let the guy play football" is what usually plays in my mind. In the preseason, Will took a shot trying to punch in a touchdown that was completely unnecessary. It was his first drive of the entire year, and it scared a lot of people. I was perfectly fine with it. I asked Brian Callahan about it after the game, and he agreed. Get popped once, shake the rust off. Just don't be dumb and do it again until the season.
I say all that to say this: I take no pleasure in being the "be safer, please slide!" guy. But Levis made a couple decisions on the ground in this game that simply weren't needed. It was pointless wear-and-tear on his body. He definitely has a Josh Allen-esque mentality as a runner: I'm a big guy, and I want to let you know it.
But as Josh Allen's career has demonstrated more than once, you must pick and choose your spots to behave that way. If you don't, you'll eventually pay for it. And for what? As with his decision not to take the sack in the 4th quarter of Week 1, he needs to be more aware of the situation.
Is a lowered-shoulder necessary to get the 1st down? Then go for it. But will a slide be the difference between a 13 and a 16 yard run in the open field? Then just go down and avoid the midgame, sideline heating pads.
