Tennessee Titans quarterback and former Kentucky starter Will Levis is receiving plenty of attention heading into his sophomore season in the NFL.
Levis showed promising signs during a rookie season in which he started nine games beginning in Week 8 when he took over for injured starter Ryan Tannehill. He threw for 1,808 yards and eight touchdowns to four interceptions, completing 58.4 percent of his passes (149 of 255) for a quarterback rating of 84.2.
Entering the 2024 NFL season, there’s plenty of talk surrounding Levis from supporters, detractors, and many who are still on the fence and taking a more reserved, wait-and-see approach.
Sam Monson of Pro Football Focus gave his projections for both Levis’ floor and ceiling this week. For his ceiling, Monson believes that Levis could be a Pro Bowl quarterback. For his floor, Monson writes that Levis’ career could be similar to that of Blaine Gabbert.
Writes Monson:
“Levis made an obvious immediate impact when he came in for the Titans last season, but that impact didn’t last. He threw four touchdown passes in his debut, and then four total over the remaining eight games.
Where things get complicated is in factoring in the supporting cast. Tennessee had the league’s worst offensive line for the second straight season, negating the strength of the team’s best player on offense (Derrick Henry) as well as putting Levis under an unreasonable amount of pressure. DeAndre Hopkins showed he can still make plays, but the receiving corps featured little else.
Tennessee has done a great job of upgrading the key areas around Levis this offseason, and the flashes we saw from him as a rookie suggest his ceiling is very high. His arm talent is truly elite, and he’s a powerful and effective, if a little reckless, scrambler.
His floor, however, remains low. His struggles could be explained away by the supporting cast, but the risk is that is just a better indication of his baseline, and the worst-case scenario is he has all the athletic tools for the position but can never put it together consistently.”
Another Pro Football Focus writer, Gordon McGuinness, offered a sunnier outlook on Levis. McGuinness put Levis on his 2024 All-Breakout Team.
“Levis flashed some talent in his rookie campaign, recording three PFF game grades of 70.0 or higher,” McGuinness said. “While he finished the year with only eight passing touchdowns, four of which came in his debut against the Atlanta Falcons, his 5.9% big-time throw rate was tied for the fifth among quarterbacks with 100 or more dropbacks.”
CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin agrees that Levis could be poised for a breakout and includes him on his list of potential first-time Pro Bowlers.
“The AFC is a tough field from which to emerge, considering the wealth of elite signal-callers up top, but Levis’ rugged dual-threat dynamism is now paired with an upgraded receiving corps featuring speedster Calvin Ridley,” Benjamin said.
“Levis is rough and tumble, like an even more reckless version of Josh Allen,” Benjamin wrote in May. “But the Titans prioritized immediate help for him up front and out wide, so he has a chance to stay healthier and put that ultra-toned arm to work in an open division.”
NBC Sports’ Chris Simms also offered some praise on a video podcast this off-season when he said that Levis had exceeded his expectations as a rookie.
“Some of the things I didn’t love about him coming out of college, I could see that he tried to work on them, get better at them. You saw that on the field. It was tangible that way. I don’t think there is any denying a few things about the guy’s game.
The arm is elite, powerful. It’s up there in the higher rankings of powerful arms in all of football. He can also really get it out of his hand quickly, even on power throws. You’ll see 20-yard out routes and you go, ‘Damn, he’s almost throwing this like a screen pass.’ His athleticism, it jumps out. His presence on the field jumps out.
The Titans open the preseason August 10 against the San Francisco 49ers at Nissan Stadium. They begin regular-season play September 8 against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.
For more coverage of Levis and the Titans, head over to Titans Wire.