Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans BENCH Will Levis, Brian Callahan's SAVED Future & Levis Experiment is OVER

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Tennessee Titans have benched Will Levis, and whether you loved him or hate him, this is a sad day for Tennessee Titans fans. I'll explain why, plus look towards the future on today's edition of Locked on Titans. You are Locked on Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. Today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast is brought to you by PrizePix.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Go to prizepix.com slash locked on NFL. Use the code locked on NFL to win $50 instantly when you play $5. On today's episode, we're going to talk about the benching of Will Levis and why it's a sad day for Titans fans, whether you loved him or hated him. We'll talk about how this buys Brian Callahan some time in the future, and we'll discuss what the Titans should do at quarterback going forward. Before I get into all of that, I do want to thank you for making the Locked on Titans podcast

Starting point is 00:01:09 your first listen each and every day. Remember, Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content all year round, always for free. That includes the offseason and it's going to be a crazy one. So make sure that you get subscribed. Stay subscribed. It's your team every day. Speaking of every day,

Starting point is 00:01:26 shout out to my everydayers out there. Tune in Monday through Friday on tomorrow's episode. It's Crossover Thursday with the folks from Locked On Colts. Then I'm going to have a game plan episode for you guys and I'll be going live immediately after the game ends on Sunday. Plus of course, having a ton of high level conversations

Starting point is 00:01:42 about the future of this franchise going forward. Now, we got the report from ESPN's Jeremy Fowler on Tuesday afternoon that the Tennessee Titans would, in fact, be benching Will Levis for the rest of the season and going with Mason Rudolph as the starting quarterback. This is not a shocking piece of news. At the end of the day, we talked on yesterday's episode why I didn't really have a care as to whether they stayed with Levis or went with Rudolph because of the state of the team, but my expectation was that the Titans would

Starting point is 00:02:17 bench Will Levis because at the end of the day, like Brian Callahan said in his press conference on Monday, you owe it to the rest of the team to not put a quarterback out there that is actively hurting the team. And not only that, but Brian Callahan has benched players at other positions for poor play. So you couldn't just not do that to Will Levis. It sends the wrong message to the locker room. But again, my big takeaway from this, and I'll talk about what

Starting point is 00:02:46 this means for the future. I think Brian Callahan, this means a lot for him going forward. I think when you look at the future of the quarterback position and the Will Levis experience or whatever, it means a lot about, you know, that going into the future. But just right now in the moment, whether you supported Will Levis, which I have done, whether you hated Will Levis the entire time and wanted him to fail and wanted the Tennessee Titans to lose games so you could be right about Will Levis failing, whether you're on this team, that team, this side of the fence, that side of the fence, doesn't really matter in my opinion. It's a sad day for you.

Starting point is 00:03:27 And I already know that some of the comments are going to say, not sad for me. I hated Will Levis. I couldn't wait for him to be gone. Well, your Tennessee Titans suck. They are lost as a franchise. They are years away from being a serious football team. Congratulations. You were right. is that what you want to hear

Starting point is 00:03:48 that is my point at the end of the day no matter whether you liked Will Levis you disliked Will Levis this is a major loss for you today remember the question that we had coming into the year the number one question that the Tennessee Titans had to answer, and the most important thing was, can Will Levis be your franchise quarterback going forward? And now we know that the answer is no.

Starting point is 00:04:17 The answer is unequivocally impossible to misunderstand. The answer is no. Will Levis is not the Tennessee Titans quarterback of the future. And again, I don't care whether you liked him, hated him, disliked him, whatever you want to call it, this is a bad, bad day. Because this means what sadly Tennessee Titans fans have dealt with for more years than not. They don't have a franchise quarterback.

Starting point is 00:04:47 And there is no worse place that you could possibly be in the NFL than knowing that you don't have a franchise quarterback. And the biggest problem for me is the Titans don't have a good path towards having a franchise quarterback. So there's anger about the way the season has went. There's disappointment that Will Levis hasn't been able to take steps to be that answer for the Titans. But more than anything else,

Starting point is 00:05:19 my emotion right now is sadness. Not because Will Levis didn't work, but because once again, it means that the Tennessee Titans, the team that I have loved for 25 years, it means that the Tennessee Titans do not have the answer at quarterback. They don't have any hope of having the answer at quarterback. There is nothing now.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And that more importantly than anything, whether you were right or wrong about Will Levis as a pro, I was a never Levis guy before the draft, but then the Titans drafted him. And what are you going to do at that moment in time? Say, no, I hate this guy. It isn't going to work. Blah, blah, blah. Be negative. No, you put your support behind the players on your team and hope that they can figure it out.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And no matter which way you want to slice it, whether you didn't like it, you liked it, you supported, you didn't, this is a bad day for Titans fans. And don't let these Tennessee Titans fans that hated Will Levis tell you that they're happy now that he failed because deep down inside they know that they are unhappy that the Tennessee Titans are once again a lost team with no quarterback. There is no sprucing that up to make that feel good,

Starting point is 00:06:29 to feel right about that. That is awful. It sucks. It's the worst place that you could possibly be as an NFL franchise is to be a team that doesn't have a quarterback and doesn't have a path to get one. More importantly than the future, than Brian Callahan, than what they do at quarterback next year,

Starting point is 00:06:49 any of those things, more importantly than any of that. This sucks. It sucks that Will Levis did not work out. It is a bad thing for the Tennessee Titans. It is a bad feeling to have. They are so far away. It didn't work.

Starting point is 00:07:09 And where do we go from here? So we're going to talk about the future ramifications. But the reality is this moment right here is not a good one for Titans fans. I don't care who you are or what you think. This is a bad day for the Tennessee Titans because it's the moment that we all, again, we collectively in the Titans tribe, take off our two-tone glasses and look at each other and know we are as far away as we have ever been right now. And that's because Will Levis isn't the answer.

Starting point is 00:07:39 Now, you could say, on a positive note, at least the Titans have an answer. But it's like when you go to the doctor because you don't feel good and they tell you you have a terminal illness. You got your answer, but it was not the answer that you were looking for. With that being said, let's look towards the future. This is actually good news for Brian Callahan, I think, at the end of the day. I'll tell you why. Do want to let you guys know that today's episode

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Starting point is 00:10:40 Titans fans, let's continue today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast, breaking down the benching of Will Levis. We talked about what it means right now, today, and the emotions that it brings with the Tennessee Titans' failures as a franchise. But now we do need to look into the future as to what this means going forward. We'll talk about Brian Callahan, talk about what the Titans do at quarterback next season. Before I continue, thanks again for making Locked on Titans

Starting point is 00:11:06 your first listen each and every day. But I look at this from Brian Callahan's perspective. So I think it's easy to say, it's easy to say, well, Brian Callahan was hired to get the best out of Will Levis and he failed, therefore he's a failure, and it makes it easier to fire him after one year.

Starting point is 00:11:30 You didn't accomplish the one thing that you were meant to do. And I think, you know, you could obviously look at it that way. But I think that's a bit unwise. I think that is, I think that is reading into things too literally. I think that there is a reality where right now the conversations are, even back when Brian Callahan was hired, the conversations were, I think that I can fix Will Levis.

Starting point is 00:12:00 I think that I can get the best out of Will Levis. But the other side of it is, they had to have had the conversation of, if I can't or if Will just isn't good enough or whatever, what do we do then? So I think there's a faulty line of thinking in the NFL that any coach can make a bad player good. You could put Kyle Shanahan with Jamarcus Russell. Jamarcus Russell isn't going to turn into a good NFL quarterback. You know what I mean? Like there is a line in the sand where the coaching can only be so good

Starting point is 00:12:39 before the player's talent has to matter. You could take Vince Lombardi and give him the Titans practice squad and they're not going to turn into a great NFL team because Vince Lombardi is such a great coach. There is a talent level that has to be there, a skill level that has to be there, a quality level that has to be there for a good

Starting point is 00:13:00 coach to make a player even better. That is a reality. And for me, the turnovers early in the year, the things that Will Levis has done wrong this year, I have a hard time blaming Brian Callahan for them. Think about all the bad turnovers at the beginning of the year. You know what I mean? Think about

Starting point is 00:13:17 the turnovers, the four turnovers that Will Levis had in this game. Like, at some point, that's not on Brian Callahan. Now, I'm not here to tell you that Brian Callahan is absolved of blame for this season because Will Levis was so bad. That is not true either. Brian Callahan has definitely had his own faults

Starting point is 00:13:37 and problems this year and deserves a large, large, large piece of blame pie. I would probably give Brian Callahan and Will Levis the same amount of blame pie for the season. Okay? I am not here to tell you it's not Brian Callahan's fault. But what I am here to tell you is the reality of the situation is he probably goes to ownership and he says,

Starting point is 00:14:00 Hey, we weren't great this year, but this team was better than what we looked like because we were trying to be patient with Will. If I would have been able to start Mason Rudolph all year, if we would have had a better option at quarterback, we would have won double the amount of games. We would have won six games. We would have won five games.

Starting point is 00:14:23 And it wouldn't have been as embarrassing because Will killed us with the turnovers early in the season, and he killed us in a couple of games with the turnovers late in the season. So if you're Brian Callahan, for me, looking at the future and what this means going forward, to me it means that Brian Callahan will have his job next year. Brian Callahan will get a second year as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans because now Will Levis can be the scapegoat for this season. And I think the reason that Brian Callahan made this move was not only the message

Starting point is 00:14:57 that it would send to the locker room, like, hey, we got to bench the guy who's playing terrible at quarterback and we bench the right tackles and we bench the punt returner and we bench the punt returner and we bench the linebackers. And we can't just not bench Will and him have special protection. So I think for me, outside of the message it sends to the locker room

Starting point is 00:15:15 is the message these last three games can send to ownership. If the Titans come out and they beat the Colts and then they beat the Jags with Mason Rudolph playing that controlled, conservative style, Brian Callahan can go to ownership in the offseason and say, look, with Will Levis, we only got one win on the season with Mason Rudolph primarily. If you want to count Miami as a Mason Rudolph game, which I think is only fair. Now, we've talked about how Mason Rudolph primarily at quarterback. If you want to count Miami as a Mason Rudolph game,

Starting point is 00:15:45 which I think is only fair. Now, we've talked about how Mason Rudolph essentially did nothing in that Miami Dolphins game to win the game. They just ran the ball consistently. I think he threw the ball once or twice in the second half. So, you know, it's not quite fair to give credit for a win to Mason Rudolph. But the reality is, outside of one and a half drives, Mason Rudolph played the Miami Dolphins game,

Starting point is 00:16:08 and Mason Rudolph beat the New England Patriots. And if Mason Rudolph beats the Colts and beats the Jags, or even gets one of those against the Jags, especially the Jags, because then you can immediately look to, hey, when we played with Will, it was 10-6, and we lost to Jacksonville. When we played with Will, it was 10-6 and we lost to Jacksonville. When we played with Mason, we beat Jacksonville. So I think if you're Brian Callahan, not only does this move allow you to scapegoat this season on Will Levis

Starting point is 00:16:37 and say, hey, this whole season was about figuring out what we got in Will Levis and we got our answer. We could have had more wins. It's not my fault. It allows him to do that, but whether that's right or wrong, again, I'm not saying that that's right. I'm just telling you what is, you know? And it also allows Brian Callahan to say,

Starting point is 00:16:56 hey, look, Calvin Ridley played better with Mason Rudolph. We ran the ball better with Mason Rudolph. We took less sacks with Mason Rudolph. We put the defense in better positions with Mason Rudolph. We ran the ball better with Mason Rudolph. We took less sacks with Mason Rudolph. We put the defense in better positions with Mason Rudolph. We won more games with Mason Rudolph. The team was significantly better with the backup quarterback that we had, who's a veteran. And you could say, imagine if we had a quarterback better than Mason Rudolph.

Starting point is 00:17:22 Then how good would the team have been under my leadership? So what it does is this move allows Brian Callahan to scapegoat Will Levis for the season while also giving him three weeks to prove to ownership, hey, when I have competent quarterback play, the team looks like this. Give me another season and we will show you what we can do going forward. So I think from a future perspective for Brian Callahan, it does those two things. It allows you to scapegoat the bad performances with Will

Starting point is 00:17:52 while also using Mason as a sign of what you can actually do as a coach and allows you to evaluate everybody on the team better than when you're being ruined by a quarterback in his turnover. So that's what I think it means for Brian Callahan for the future. But what does it mean for the Titans at quarterback in 2025? We'll talk about some options. And can you go back to Will Levis?

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Starting point is 00:21:19 I don't care who you are as a Titans fan. If today isn't a sad day, you are lying. The Titans don't have a franchise quarterback. The Will Levis experiment looks like it's officially over, but is it? That's the question. Before I get into the Titans future at quarterback, do want to thank you again for making Locked On Titans your first listen. Make Locked On NFL your second listen. Look, it's about to be playoff time. The Titans won't be there. If you're still an NFL fan like I am, you're still going to be locked into the playoffs. Check out Locked On

Starting point is 00:21:49 NFL to get all your NFL news. I'm the lead host over there, so you'd be supporting me as well, and I'd appreciate it. But, with that being said, the future at quarterback is incredibly bleak. Now, here's a reality that people won't want to hear today,

Starting point is 00:22:05 but I think is still a reality. Will Levis is probably going to be back on this team next year. Cutting him after two seasons of his rookie contract doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, we have seen failed quarterbacks get traded recently. Kenny Pickett, Mac Jones. So maybe the Titans trade Will Levis to a team and get, you know, a fourth round pick or a fifth round pick back. That could make sense. That's probably what they'll end up doing if they truly decide to go a different direction. But I think there is a reality where Will Levis is back on this team, but he's just not the expected starter going in. Like if the Titans go out and get a free agent veteran quarterback. Now, you could say, why wouldn't that be Mason Rudolph?

Starting point is 00:22:52 If Mason Rudolph gets a couple of wins here at the end of the year, why wouldn't he have a shot? And maybe he would. But I think if you come back next year with Mason Rudolph and Will Levis as your quarterbacks, But I think if you come back next year with Mason Rudolph and Will Levis as your quarterbacks, you know, that's just such a risk for Brian Callahan and Rand Carthon to take when their jobs are probably on the line next year. I don't know if you can do that.

Starting point is 00:23:16 So to me, it's either Will Levis and a better, quote unquote, better veteran quarterback, quote unquote better veteran quarterback or it's Mason Rudolph and a young quarterback from the draft that you're going to attach your hopes to then. That's basically the only options. To me, you can't roll back Levis and Rudolph. You can bring back Levis. You can bring back Rudolph, but you can't bring them both back and do this quarterback room again.

Starting point is 00:23:43 You cannot do that. You're setting yourself up for failure. You're setting the team up for failure. That can't be the plan. So what are the two different routes here? Number one, which I think is what, this is what I, what I want the Titans to do. And what I think the Titans will do are two different things here. What I think the Titans will do is go get a veteran quarterback in the draft

Starting point is 00:24:09 or veteran quarterback in free agency. Obviously, at the top of the list is Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold, Jameis Winston, Justin Fields. I think guys like Derek Carr and Aaron Rodgers are going to be available. They're not going to be brought back by their teams. Maybe Derek Carr back to the Saints. But I don't see Rodgers going back to the Jets. I don't see Derek Carr going back to the Saints.

Starting point is 00:24:32 Again, possibility is there, but I don't quite buy it. Maybe Kirk Cousins becomes available, and you go with something like that, hoping that you could just string together a decent season of 7-8 wins and give yourself a third year if you're Brian Callahan or a fourth year if you're Rand Carthon. Like, it's job preservation at this point is what I expect from the Titans, and that's what makes me so angry is the coaching staff and the general manager are going to do what's best for them and not what's best for the Titans' future, And it's just going to keep them in this perpetual cycle of garbage.

Starting point is 00:25:08 All right? So that's what I fear the most. I do not want any of these free agent quarterbacks. I don't. But that's what I think the Titans will do. I think the Titans will get Sam Darnold. They'll get Jameis Winston. They'll get Justin Fields, Derek Carr, Aaron Rodgers, Daniel Jones.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Oh, my God. They're going to get one of those guys and bring them back with Will Levis as the backup. That is what I see happening most likely. Now the other side of that is the Titans bring back Mason Rudolph, but then get a young quarterback. And I don't believe that the Titans are going to be in position to get Shadur Sanders or to get Cam Ward

Starting point is 00:25:49 without giving up a haul of draft picks that I do not think would be wise for either of those quarterbacks. If one of them fall into your lap, then I guess you could take them. You know what I mean? But do not trade multiple first-round picks to go up in the draft to get Cam Ward or Shadur Sanders. That is a massive mistake.

Starting point is 00:26:08 These guys would not have been first-round picks in last year's draft. They would not have gone ahead of Bo Nix, Michael Penix, J.J. McCarthy. So you're talking about quarterback seven or eight in last year's draft class. You cannot trade multiple first-round picks to go up and get these guys. So if one of them falls in your year's draft class, you cannot trade multiple first round picks to go up and get these guys. So if one of them falls in your lap, then sure, the real problem for the Titans is that Drew Aller from Penn State

Starting point is 00:26:33 is going back to college. He would have been a logical option as the third quarterback off the board that would have been available for the Titans without them having to trade a bunch of draft picks to move up. And now that's not an option. So without him, you're looking at Quinn Ewers, Carson Beck, Jalen Milrow, like, and after that, I, I am already annoyed at the people talking about Dylan Gabriel. Get out of my face with Dylan Gabriel.

Starting point is 00:27:07 He is not going to be a good NFL quarterback. And look, the reality is, Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins, Brock Purdy, Russell Wilson. Those are the quarterbacks who are starting quarterbacks who were drafted outside the two rounds. That means that 28 other starting quarterbacks were drafted in the first or second round. You find your good quarterbacks in the first or second round. That's all there is to it.

Starting point is 00:27:33 If you're not going to draft a guy in the first or second round, I do not want him. I don't want him on the team, period. Period. Period. Period. I'll never change my mind on that. Those guys are outliers. They are extremes.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Don't bring up Tom Brady. Talking about quarterback. That is an outlier. The Titans are not a franchise that should be chasing outliers. They need to do it by the book. Go with the trends. They have tried to do outlier football for 25 years. It didn't work. Like, I don't, I don't, I

Starting point is 00:28:10 don't want to do it again. I don't. I would rather fail on first and second round quarterbacks and at least have higher odds of them being hit than doing the opposite. So, could you go back to Levis? You could, but not as the certified starter. I think that would come with, again, a Darnold, a Winston, a Fields, a Carr, a Rogers, a Daniel Jones, something like that.

Starting point is 00:28:32 And if they go the young route with a second-round quarterback, because I don't think they're going to have an option to get Sanders or Ward, then you've got to bring back Mason Rudolph, I guess. Maybe you combine the two. You go Sam Darnold and a Quinn Ewers or something like that. Either way, I hate all of the options. I hate all of the options at the end of the day. So what you like, let me know.

Starting point is 00:28:56 We'll have to debate these things throughout the offseason, and I am just going to be sick about it. Debating Sam Darnold or Quinn Ewers or Carson fight me man. Oh my God. The dark ages have returned. But with that being said, that is going to do it for me today folks. As always, I am

Starting point is 00:29:16 your host Tyler Rowland and this was Locked on Titans. you

Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Tennessee Titans BENCH Will Levis, Brian Callahan's SAVED Future & Levis Experiment is OVER

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