Will Levis' 2024 debut didn't go the way anybody wanted it to.
But he and his team are on to Week 2, and are handling their disastrous start about as well as you could hope.
Whenever a QB kicks off a season like that, more than a simple tick in the loss column becomes concerning. How will they respond mentally? Does panic creep in? Do they feel the public heat already? How are his teammates and coaches responding?
With some passers, a single week like the one Levis had could derail their entire season (or even career).
I asked Titans Head Coach Brian Callahan on Wednesday about striking that tricky balance: quickly correcting big mistakes without sapping a guy's confidence and abruptly rejiggering their process. He gave a thoughtful answer:
"Yea, it's a learning process for guys. That's heavy, those things weigh heavy on you. You know, it's a learning process for me too. It weighs heavy on me too. So... but those things you work through."
Callahan did acknowledge that "there's guys that handle it well, and then there's guys that struggle. But I'd say so far, Will's handled it great. Even after the game, he was in a really really good place. Understood the mistakes, understood what he had to correct, and was ready to kind of move forward."
Mental toughness is a requirement to play in the NFL, especially the quarterback position. Because as Callahan explained, "it's always going to be on you. Whether you're deserving of it or not, it's always on you whether you win or lose. And that's a pretty heavy crown to bear sometimes. But Will is about as tough as they come, and he's more than up to the challenge to be able to handle that type of thing. And that part to me was really encouraging, when he came in on Monday and was open, honest, critical of his performance and ready to get ready for the next game."
Brian Callahan has some recent experience coaching a team that starts slow. Since 2020, the Bengals have started a season 0-2 three times with Joe Burrow under center. To their credit, they've been steadfast and managed to pull themselves out of that hole they dig for themselves. That's a skill Callahan hopes to have mastered in Cincinnatti so he might be able to deploy it in Tennessee.
He also has experience with QBs who start slow:
"Yea, I mean, We're all sort of a product of our experiences, and I think that I've had some really good ones around some really good players. And so yea, it's really helpful to see. Because every quarterback, no matter how good they are, at some point loses a game. And that's just the way it goes. You play long enough, you get humbled enough times, you understand that's part of playing in the NFL and part of being a leader, part of being the face of the franchise. So I've been a part of some guys that understand that and know how to react to it."
Callahan went on to give some examples. "You know, I though one of the best ones that I've... Peyton (Manning) was great, I got to see Joe (Burrow) learn how to do that, and then the one that I thought was really really impressive was Matthew Stafford. I thought he understood that process as good as anybody and had some really tough years early in his career as well. So those guys learn, they figure it out, and they learn what leadership looks like."
He closed with a re-emphasis of a point he's made before: "real leadership is most impressive when it's hard and not necessarily when things are going great. And I think Will is totally up to that task."
After Wednesday's practice, Levis himself got a chance to address how he's moving forward.
"I mean it's just coming to work the same way I have, regardless of what happens the day before. And that's been the M.O. since day 1. It's also a part of my game that I've improved on a lot in my career. There've been times when a game like that would've lingered for days, weeks, and really just kept getting to me.
Then came the statement that rubbed many the wrong way: "But I didn't lose sleep Sunday night, you know? I know that I'm a good quarterback in this league, and obviously a lot of things to get better on. But watching that tape, I still have that confidence and knowing that it's just kind of a fluke play that I can definitely learn from. So, yea, I've still got all the confidence in the world in this team and everything, just gotta come to work every day the same way regardless of what happens."
Plenty of Titans fans, some of whom argued they lost sleep over the performance, took issue with the dismissive nature of Levis' press conference.
But I think that's lazy and wrong.
This is how you should want your QB to respond, assuming you have any fundamental belief in him to become The Guy™️. Confidence, unchanged. process, unchanged. You identify the mistakes, and you make tweaks. But lingering on the past solves nothing. And worse, losing trust in the process you've spent months establishing based on one (1) game is reactionary nonsense.
Levis and his coaches should remain unmoved when it comes to their long-term plan. And luckily, they are.
