Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis is taking a ton of heat already in 2024. People expected big things from him this year, especially under new head coach Brian Callahan, who is offensively minded as opposed to former coach Mike Vrabel’s defensive mentality.
As Levis continues to make mistakes, his line isn’t doing him very many favors despite the offseason changes. Against the New York Jets in Week 2, Levis was the NFL’s most pressured quarterback.
Most pressured QBs in the NFL – % of dropbacks
𝟭. 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘀 – 𝟱𝟯.𝟰%
2. Caleb Williams – 43.2%
3. Justin Fields – 41.1%
4. Deshaun Watson – 40.4%
5. Justin Herbert – 39.2%via @NextGenStats (only QBs who have played two games – Brissett was pressured 44.3% wk1)
— Will Boling (@will_boling) September 16, 2024
Now, this stat is based on dropbacks alone. But the Titans also rank 17th in time-to-throw, per NextGen stats. Levis is getting 2.8 seconds to throw the ball, while Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals leads the league with an average time to throw of 3.15 seconds.
That’s not a significant time difference, literally milliseconds, but Murray has completed 73.1% of his passes and has a quarterback rating of 122.9. Levis has completed 63.3% of his passes and has a 67.3 quarterback rating. Those milliseconds matter.
The other part of this that needs exploring is how close the defenders are when Levis is dropping back. Does he really need to drop back like that, or is he stepping back in situations where it might be beneficial to actually step forward? Brian Callahan, Nick Holz, Bill Callahan, and Bo Hardegree need to go over these situational things to see what adjustments need to be made.