Maybe it was the Houston Oilers throwbacks.
Maybe it was an Atlanta Falcons defense that looked out of sorts more often than it should have been.
Maybe it was just the vagaries of football.
Or maybe, rookie Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis has developed to the point where he can do this more than once. But what Levis did against that Falcons defense was indeed historic. With Ryan Tannehill sidelined due to an ankle injury, and backup Malik Willis playing like… well. Malik Willis, Titans head coach Mike Vrabel made the call to give evis not only his first NFL start, but his first actual NFL snaps.
It’s been a interesting journey for the 2023 second-round pick out of Kentucky, but Levis clearly stored up some explosive plays for that debut. He became the third quarterback in pro football history, following Fran Tarkenton in 1961 and Marcus Mariota in 2015, to throw four touchdown passes in his NFL debut. And his passer rating of 130.5 was the second-highest for a pro quarterback in his first game, trailing only Robert Griffin III’s 139.9 in 2012.
“It was a lot of fun,” Levis said after the game. “Like I’ve been saying: This is the game I love, and there’s nothing better than winning a football game.”
“He was ballin’, huh?,” running back Derrick Henry said of his new starting quarterback. “He was playing out of his mind. It was good to see, because he works so hard. I could tell he was locked in, and we were excited to see it come together for him and the offense.”
“He’s a very talented quarterback, confident,” said receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who had four catches for 128 yards and three touchdowns. “He plays the game like he’s been here. [Offensive coordinator] Tim Kelly and those guys did a great job getting him prepared today.”
“I think you can build off a win,” Vrabel concluded. “Now we have to recover, we have to get back, and go on the road to Pittsburgh. We know how hard that is to win, at night, on a short week.
“But I am excited. I am excited that we won.”
What did we really learn about Will Levis’ NFL potential? Because when you tie a record previously get by one Hall of Famer (Tarkenton) and one career journeyman (Mariota), it tells you all you need to know about judging a young quarterback based on just one game. The Thursday night matchup between the Titans and the Pittsburgh Steelers gives Levis a quick opportunity to capitalize… or with Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett out, ostensibly replaced by Mitch Trubisky, this could be one of those games that sets offense back 50 years.
But here’s what we saw in Levis’ first meaningful NFL reps.
Levis got in rhythm early, and the game plan helped.
The plan put together by Tim Kelly was optimal for any young quarterback — Levis had seven passing attempts of zero or fewer yards, and eight passes of 20 or more air yards. The Titans started out with quick passes to put Levis in rhythm before things went Bombs Away. Tennessee’s first drive had two Derrick Henry runs and a Levis three-yard Tush Push on third-and-1 that extended that first drive… until Malik Willis came in and fumbled his first snap to give the ball to Atlanta.
Levis’ first three attempts on the second drive were short passes to running back Tyjae Spears and tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo. Then, on fourth-and-1, a fake punt snap to safety Amani Hooker for a two-yard gain to extend that drive.
Then, with 7:09 left in the first quarter, Levis uncorked his first deep ball of the day — an incompletion to receiver Treylon Burks on a deep over route from left to right that would have been an ungodly play had it succeeded. Safety Richie Grant and slot cornerback DeAundre Alford had Burks bracketed as Alford followed across in Cover-3 and Grant took the top off, but Levis still damn near made this work. It’s why even those of us who had serious questions about Levis’ ability to operate an offense at the NFL level had no such hesitations about his pure arm strength.
But from there, those deep passes were on lock.
The deep passes were helped by whatever the Falcons were doing.
Levis threw for 238 yards in the game, and 125 of those were air yards on his four touchdowns. His first touchdown pass came with 2:37 left in the first quarter. The Titans were in 12 personnel with tight ends Chigoziem Okonkwo and Trevon Wesco on the field. and this was a two-man route concept with Burks running the crosser and Hopkins on the backside vertical. Okonkwo and Wesco stayed in to protect, Burks’ motion told Levis that he had zone coverage (Cover-4), and Burks’ over route took four Falcons defenders across. Then, all Levis had to do was to exploit the matchup between Hopkins and cornerback A.J. Terrell on a 47-yard pass that had 43 air yards. Hopkins may not be the player he once was, but he can still bully his way through one-on-ones.
If you have the right routes against an over-eager defense, you can win the 2-on-5 game. pic.twitter.com/FcyZcyKp1u
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) October 30, 2023
Hopkins can also vaporize a defender with quick moves in stride, as he did on Levis’ 61-yard touchdown pass with 1:46 left in the third quarter. Hopkins was going vertical all the way here, but his stutter inside 10 yards upfield put Richie Grant in a place he really didn’t want to be as the last line of defense in Cover-2.
The threat of the run also helped.
DeAndre Hopkins talked after the game about how well Levis has developed as a quarterback who can use the art of deception to benefit his offense.
DeAndre Hopkins said he has seen Will Levis work on the movements and fakes that impacted the defense. Hopkins gave Levis the ball after his first TD and told him, "Let's go get some more." pic.twitter.com/ZP5t85IcMx
— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) October 29, 2023
With play-action, Levis completed seven of 12 passes for 9.4 yards per completion, two explosive plays, and two touchdowns. The 33-yard score to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine with 7:06 left in the game showed how well the Titans were able to get big passing plays by sucking the Falcons’ defense up out of run looks. Atlanta had seven men in the box when Levis faked the handoff to Derrick Henry on second-and-11, which turned it into a bit of a jumble for the Falcons against Westbrook-Ikhine’s route. At first, it looked as if Westbrook-Ikhine was going vertical as the Titans had done all day, but when he broke the route inside, safety Jessie Bates III clearly got turned around.
There were also multiple instances in which Levis was given a simple zone read to clock the activities of a particular defender, and react appropriately. Here, Levis saw end Calais Campbell crash in on the fake to Henry, which gave him the room he needed to boot right and throw an 11-yard completion to Okonkwo on a crosser that started behind the line of scrimmage.
Not everything was perfect.
It’s not a slam on Levis at all to say that there are a few throws he might like to execute differently. This incompletion to Burks with 10:29 left in the first half was one example of how the YOLO Gene can get you in trouble even when you’re playing exceedingly well. This was a third-and-3 situation, and Levis had receiver Kyle Phillips wiiiiiiide open out of bunch right — the Falcons had basically conceded the first down.
Sometimes, it’s best to take the profit.
Here’s another unfortunate third down opportunity — Levis tried a clearly bracketed Hopkins in the end zone from the Atlanta 40-yard line. It was third-and-7, and Levis had matching favorable underneath routes to Phillips and Okonkwo. These are not fatal flaws in a young quarterback’s development, but Levis does still need to realize that not every pitch has to be (or should be) the 105-MPH fastball.
Should Will Levis be the Titans' future right now?
Right now, the Titans are 3-4, and they just won a game in which their second-year quarterback threw twice as many touchdowns in a single game as their veteran starter (Tannehill) had thrown all season long. Levis, for any developmental issues you care to mention, has more of that all-too-dangerous word — UPSIDE — than any other quarterback on the roster. On Thursday, he’ll be facing a Steelers defense that currently ranks eighth in Defensive DVOA; the Falcons ranked 22nd, and they’re sure to drop precipitously after this misadventure.
Overall, the Titans are in a bit of a purgatory in that they’re not bad enough to offload everybody and blow it all up, but they’re not excellent enough at any one thing to set opponents on edge. But they’re in a similarly unspectacular AFC South (outside of the Jacksonville Jaguars), and who’s to say that Levis’ sparkle might not shift things in the longer term? It’s clear that Levis and his coaches are in a good groove with the execution of the playbook, and that’s something you want to follow if it stands up.
If Levis is able to maintain the good stuff against a much tougher defensive opponent in a few days, the question will most likely answer itself.
