Will Levis’s Upside Can Prevent the Titans From Getting Stale

Tennessee’s new GM took a major swing Friday aimed at elevating the franchise to a higher level.

After a horrendous draft night a year ago that saw the Titans lose A.J. Brown in a failed attempt to save money and replace one of the best receivers in the NFL with a rookie, Tennessee entered 2023 in need of a performative masterpiece with a new general manager behind the desk.

And while Ran Carthon didn’t exactly bull us over out of the gate, on Friday night he may have made the best single pick in this year’s draft—the kind of selection that could finally pull the Titans out of an organizational holding pattern they’ve been in for the better part of the last four years.

In quarterback Will Levis, the Titans grabbed a passer who has already been steeped in the offense. To connect the dots: Levis’s hand-picked offensive coordinator at Kentucky, Rich Scangarello, was a top lieutenant of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan for years; and the Titans prefer running a similar outside-zone-style scheme that was brought to them by current Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, back when LaFleur was the Titans’ offensive coordinator in 2018. Before that, Levis played for Liam Cohen, a skilled play-caller from the Sean McVay tree.

The Titans needed a long-term solution at QB, and Levis has first-round upside :: Jordan Prather/USA TODAY Sports. Illustration by Bryce Wood

There are good coaches who saw Levis throw whom I’ve heard make a Matt Ryan comparison. There are good coaches who viewed him as one of the two best quarterbacks in the draft. There are throws he’s made in practice at Kentucky that left spectators babbling. Perhaps that is all just a bit of predraft hyperbole, but maybe the Titans finally found a sensible solution that allows them to move on from Ryan Tannehill without sacrificing the kind of draft capital that would’ve compromised the rest of the patchwork Carthon will have to do further down the roster. In that way, Carthon will be able to bill himself as something his predecessor Jon Robinson could not: a skilled evaluator of talent who also had the kind of killer instinct that can hoist a team over that dividing line between very good and great. It may just take a little time before Carthon is able to take a bow.

Carthon inherited a team that was not just reeling from a personnel sense, but was also reeling from a lack of dynamism. Say what you will about Levis’s social media presence, which is almost exclusively people feigning surprise over the fact that he eats rotten bananas and puts mayonnaise in his coffee, but those facts alone are infinitely more interesting than the breadth of Tannehill’s biography. I can sell rotten bananas and mayonnaise to a stadium full of friendly Tennesseeans (both of which I’m sure are on the menu of some barbecue place in Nashville). I’m not sure I could sell another season of Tannehill with no clear solution.

The Titans were in danger of growing incredibly stale. It wasn't hard to see Mike Vrabel outcoaching his pythagorean win-loss expectations year after year, eliminating Tennessee from any opportunity to get close enough to the No. 1 pick to draft a legitimate quarterback of the future. Derrick Henry could gain four yards per carry deep into his 30s with that sledgehammer of a frame. Vrabel could scheme a group of sixth-graders to a top-15 defense. The Titans could cement themselves in the middle of the NFL, like a football equator. Without taking a legitimate stab at a quarterback with upside, the Titans were going to become, at the very best, the Bengals during the height of the Andy Dalton era.

It’s understandable that some may be scared by the Levis pick after watching him plummet out of the first round, especially after his fictional internet cousin declared that the Panthers were ready to pick him No. 1. There is also the matter of a mystery toe ailment, which reportedly affected his draft status.

But this was always a decision about potential upside versus current roster setup, ownership setup and available draft equity. The Titans have rarely shown themselves willing to improve the team via measures that don’t involve cost-controlled rookie contracts or economically measured stabs at certain free agents. Bud Dupree was among their biggest free-agent signings of the Vrabel era. Tannehill is the 15th-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. Had they not paid to keep Henry when the running back hit free agency, we would have started searching the front office for evidence of a Rachel Phelps sighting.

When the Titans took Malik Willis a year ago, perhaps they had a similar thought in mind, even though the early returns on the Liberty standout were underwhelming. Perhaps it also showed them how much more situationally aggressive they needed to be if they want a draft pick at the position who can come in and change the franchise.

Levis is that kind of player, and the Titans knew they couldn’t pass him up a second time, like they did in taking offensive lineman Peter Skoronski with the 11th pick Thursday. That alone earns Carthon the benefit of the doubt.