Tennessee Tians – Syndication Server

Accuracy named Titans QB Will Levis’ biggest weakness

Pro Football Focus named “accuracy” as the biggest weakness for Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis.

Pro Football Focus recently named accuracy as the biggest weakness for Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis.

PFF recently broke down the biggest weakness for every starting NFL quarterback and for the sophomore quarterback in Nashville, placing the ball where it needs to be has been an issue during the start of his career.

There are a lot of flaws in Levis’ game right now, but his chapter isn’t closed just yet. He has played only nine NFL games with inconsistent results but now gets a new coaching staff and a full offseason to unleash his potential for 2024. Levis does need to hone his accuracy, as his 24.6% uncatchable inaccurate rate last year is the worst mark among returning starters.

Levis was far from a great passer last season as he finished with 1,808 passing yards, eight passing touchdowns, and four interceptions in nine games. To make matters worse, he only completed 58.4 percent of his passes, making him dead last out of all quarterbacks who started at least eight games.

The former Kentucky Wildcat had a lot of hype coming into his senior season, even getting mocked as high as a top-five draft selection. However, after a mediocre final season at Kentucky, where he only threw for 2,405 yards and 19 touchdowns with 10 interceptions, he slipped down draft boards.

As a result of this, and a lack of elite production in his other collegiate seasons, Levis fell to the second round of the 2023 NFL draft (a very quarterback-needy draft) despite his raw talent.

Accuracy has very clearly been a problem throughout his whole career as it was quoted as his biggest flaw in his draft profile:

Accuracy is below average. Regularly sprays quick game throws; can struggle to set up clean YAC opportunities. Even worse in 2022 than in 2021.

Levis will need to improve on this quickly if he wants to be a long-term starter in this league as the Titans have gone out and surrounded him with receivers that are known to create separation this offseason (Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd).

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Is Titans WR DeAndre Hopkins ‘on the brink’ of the Hall of Fame?

Bleacher Report recently ranked players on how likely they were to make the Hall of Fame and DeAndre Hopkins was in the “on the brink” category.

Comparable to Jones but with a shorter prime to date, the 32-year-old still has room to build cumulative stats late in his career. Three first-team All-Pro nods and more than 12,000 yards get him within reaching distance.

Coming in as the 18th most likely player currently in the NFL to make the Hall of Fame, Hopkins has had quite the illustrious career. 928 catches for 12,335 receiving yards and 78 touchdowns are impressive numbers especially when you factor in how abysmal his quarterback play has been throughout his career.

Nevertheless, even with his team holding him back, the Clemson product has earned three straight (2017-2019) first-team All-Pros, two second-team All-Pros, and five Pro Bowl nominations. However, without much playoff success in his career, Hopkins will likely have to rack up a couple more years worth of stats to make his seat in Canton comfortable.

According to Pro Football Reference, Hopkins’ Hall of Fame (HOF) Monitor is only 71.19, 39th amongst all receivers in NFL history. For reference, the average HOF Monitor of a Hall of Fame receiver is 101.40. No non-kick returner receiver in the Hall of Fame since 1990 has had a lower HOF rating than Hopkins currently has. At age 32, it looks like Nuk is at the tail-end of his career but if he can manage to put up some more numbers a gold jacket might be in his future.

Titans’ Brian Callahan on RB roles: ‘We’ll find out’

Titans head coach Brian Callahan is unsure of how the workload will be distributed in the team’s 2024 backfield.

For the first time since 2016, the Tennessee Titans will be without Derrick Henry in their backfield. The 30-year-old signed a two-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens.

The Titans were quick to sign running back Tony Pollard to a three-year contract after he had spent his first five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, and the signing officially signaled the end of the Henry era in Nashville.

Tennessee has long been a franchise that has leaned on its running game. Without Henry as the presumed lead back, there are undoubtedly questions surrounding the running backs room and how the touches will be shared.

Along with Pollard, the Titans will work in Tyjae Spears. The former third-round pick orchestrated a solid rookie season considering the circumstances, accounting for 453 rushing yards on 100 carries. Spears was heavily utilized in the passing game, as well, collecting 385 yards on 52 catches.

Going into the 2024 season, the running back competition between Pollard and Spears will be one of the more interesting storylines. How can the two co-exist? Could competition bring out the best in both players?

“We’ll find out,” Titans head coach Brian Callahan said of the backs, via Jim Wyatt. “As I see them right now, they are both pretty interchangeable. But I do think there will be some definition of role as we get going, and we put the pads on and start playing, those guys will probably separate themselves in some role or another that they’ll sort of sink their teeth into. But as of right now, I see them pretty interchangeable. We’ll find out more as we go.”

In addition to Pollard and Spears, the Titans have Hassan Haskins and Julius Chestnut looking to carve out roles.

Haskins, drafted in the fourth round in 2022, rushed for 93 yards on 25 carries in his rookie campaign. However, he missed all of last season after suffering an injury in training camp.

As a result, Chestnut, who had a tremendous preseason showing, made the initial roster and played mostly on special teams before suffering a season-ending injury.

It’s fair to expect both guys to be hungry to prove themselves in 2024, especially with uncertainty about how the Titans plan to integrate their running backs.

However, given his contract and his emergence in the league over the last two seasons, Pollard figures to receive the lion’s share of the carries in 2024.

The former Memphis Tiger developed in a similar role to Henry when he came up with the Cowboys. Pollard played behind Ezekiel Elliott until he outrushed his teammate in 2022, despite seeing fewer carries.

With Dallas moving on from Elliott after the 2022 season, Pollard became the featured back. At 26 years of age, he played in all 17 games and rushed for 1,005 yards on 252 carries. Additionally, Pollard was a threat in the passing game, hauling in 55 catches on 67 targets for 311 yards.

Serving primarily as a backup until last year has helped Pollard become a weapon for the Titans because he still has relatively low miles on him.

Now, Tennessee can unleash their free-agent splash this year.

“I think our best version of Tony is probably coming,” Callahan said of Pollard, who came back from a fractured fibula last season after suffering the injury during the 2022 playoffs. “Tony’s explosiveness, his ability to be productive in the passing game, he has real receiver skills, and then be able to pass protect — he sort of has all three things you look for in a running back. (He’s) a very three-down player, and one we can pair up with Tyjae Spears and I think have a pretty formidable 1-2 punch.”

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Texans’ Romeo Crennel was always going for 2 against the Titans

Interim coach Romeo Crennel explained why he decided to go for two in the Houston Texans 42-36 overtime loss to the Tennessee Titans.

The Houston Texans weren’t leading 36-29 over the Tennessee Titans with 1:50 left in the game because they had played it safe for most of the game.

On a fourth-and-goal from the Titans’ 1-yard line, leading 30-29, interim coach Romeo Crennel chose to go for it rather than kick the field goal and force Tennessee to drive the length of the field to score a touchdown and win the game.

Quarterback Deshuan Watson threw a 1-yard pass to receiver Brandin Cooks, and Crennel was forced with another choice: take the easy extra point and make it a one-score game, albeit Tennessee needing a touchdown plus a two-point conversion, or go for two, make it a two-score game, and put it out of reach for the Titans.

Sending kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn out for an extra point was never an option for Crennel.

“No, I wanted to go ahead and get the two points,” Crennel said. “I felt like that would kind of put if out of reach for them. And if we had gotten it, we would have been in much better shape.”

Watson was looking for receiver Randall Cobb to score the 2-pointer, but the pass fell incomplete.

“As it turned out, we didn’t get it, and then with the touchdown and the extra point they tied it up and then we’re in overtime,” said Crennel. “And then we didn’t perform in overtime, and they win the game.”

The Titans mounted a nine-play, 75-yard drive to tie the game on a 7-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Ryan Tannehill to receiver A.J. Brown. In overtime, Tennessee won the toss and marched 82 yards to score the winning touchdown with running back Derrick Henry rushing for a 5-yard score. Tennessee pulled out the win, 42-36.

“That’s the nature of this game that we’re in,” Crennel said. “When you win, when you’re successful, everybody feels good about it. When you lose and you’re not successful on a play, then everybody feels usually bad about it.”