Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Will Levis MUST START for Tennessee Titans, Ryan Tannehill Trade Needed & Malik Willis is DONE

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

The Tennessee Titans drafted Will Levis in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft and the Titans need to commit to Levis as soon as possible. Tyler breaks down why going with Levis as the starter now makes the most sense for the Titans whether it goes good or bad. Also, the Titans need to use this chance to trade Ryan Tannehill for anything they can, if they can. Finally, Tyler explains why it is the end of the road for Malik Willis and his time with the Titans.Follow Tyler on Twitter @TicTacTitansFollow the show on Facebook @LockedOnTitansPodSubscribe to the Locked On Titans YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/LockedOnTitans/videosSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Titans fans, let's play a game with the Titans quarterbacks. Start, trade, or cut. I'm going to tell you what should happen with Will Levis, Ryan Tannehill, and Malik Willis on today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it. 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, the biggest question coming out of the draft for the Titans is what is about to happen at quarterback. We have Ryan Tannehill, the newly drafted Will Levis, last year's third round pick Malik Willis. We're going to play a game of start, trade, or cut and decide what needs to happen with each of the quarterbacks. Before we get into it, I do want to let you know that today's episode

is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of the NFL. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash LockedOn to get started today. Also want to thank you guys for making the LockedOn Titans podcast your first listen every day. Remember, Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content all year round on all platforms and always for free. Make sure that you get subscribed.

Stay subscribed to the Locked On Titans podcast. I'm going to be doing full-length breakdowns of all the prospects, deep dive into Will Levis and his game schematically. All of that coming soon. We're going to talk about free agent wide receivers, trades for wide receivers, people who may be cut on other teams at wide receiver that the Titans need to get, so a lot of content coming your way.

Shout out to my everydayers tuning into the show Monday through Friday every single week. If you're new, welcome in. Get on that everyday train. I got free content coming your way all year round. Throw a thumbs up on the video right now if you're watching. Goes a long way to help support the channel. And as always, it's time to dive in. So we're going to start here with start out of start trade and cut. Who would I have start for the Titans next year? And my answer is simple.

It's Will Levis. You picked Will Levis with your second round pick. You traded up to go get him, giving up a third round pick in next year's draft. You have put a lot of capital into this guy. And with where the Titans are at as a team, it's just time to do it. Cut the charade is what I wrote down. Just cut the charade here. Will Levis needs to start. Okay, number one, you need to see what you have in Will Levis as soon as possible.

And this isn't like Malik Willis when he came in last year and had never even taken a snap under center before. Will Levis is such a great fit with the Titans because of the schematic similarities of what he did in college to what he's going to do with the Titans. So cut the charade. Cut the crap. You traded up in the second round to get Levis. You probably would have taken him at 11 if Skowronski wasn't there. You got him because he fits so perfectly in the system and is used to doing what you're going to ask him to do. There's no real, I mean, there's going to be a learning curve no matter what, but within reason, there's not this huge learning curve schematically. Will Levis understands what's going to be asked of him within the Titans offense because he was just doing that in college.

Now, obviously, college to NFL, there's going to be a jump there. So I'm not saying it's exactly the same, but it's similar enough to where he had the Titans interest. So the whole point of trading up to get Will Levis was because he fits so well and he can play so soon. And you can take advantage of his cheap contract the first four years. So my thing is, and I talked about this with the grades. I talked about it with the day three review at the end.

The Titans need to commit. Commit to a direction. There's something in my writing. I write for Sports Illustrated, alltitans.com. Go check out my work there. But there's something that I've been putting in articles lately that kind of came to me. And it's the Titans are trying to walk down two different directions. And when you try to go down two paths at the same time, the only one you go down is the wrong one.

So let that sink in. You try to walk down two paths at the same time, you're only going to walk down the wrong one. The Titans need to commit here, okay? Are you going to go with a youth movement, which is what I think they need to do and start Will Levis and see what you have in him. And if he's terrible and you're bad, you can pick a quarterback again next year. But what the Titans aren't doing is giving

enough help to Tannehill and Henry. If their idea was to have one more year of Tannehill and Henry and go for it one more time with our veteran guys, well, they didn't do anywhere near enough to make that possible. This isn't the last dance like Aaron Rodgers said. I mean, with what they did at wide receiver, spending a second round pick and a third round pick on Tannehill and Henry's replacement, I mean, if you wanted to do one last dance with Henry and Tannehill,

you have failed miserably. So in the attempt to walk down both paths, they have failed at one of them already. So don't fail the other one. Don't fail the youth movement. Start Will Levis. See what you have in him. Let that inform your decision going forward.

They didn't give up so much to get him that they can't move off of him if they have a better option, if they find themselves in Caleb Williams or Drake May territory. You know what I mean? If the Titans are terrible and get a top five pick and they take Drake May or Caleb

Williams next year, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. They didn't give up so much in Levis that you're stuck to him. So see what you got in him. You know. You know what you have otherwise. So see what you got with him. He's good. He's good. He's bad. You're bad. It's a win-win either way. But what the Titans have to do is pick a direction. Either go youth movement or try harder to surround Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry

with some real help if that's what you want to do. But they're trying to walk down two paths and they're only going to walk down the wrong one. But with that in mind, I would start Will Levis. What I would do with Ryan Tannehill, am I cutting him? Am I trading him? We're going to talk about that in just a moment. Before we get into it, I do want to let you guys know that today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Look guys, Major League Baseball season is here.

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We're playing a fun game of start, trade, cut. I just answered my first question with who would I start, and that's Will Levis. We're going to talk about who the Titans should trade, who the Titans should cut as we move forward throughout the show. On tomorrow's show, I'm going to be breaking down what is available to the Titans on the wide receiver market. Who's available in free agency, who the Titans might be able to trade for,

who might be cut from their roster as an option for the Titans. I'm going over all of that on tomorrow's show. I know my everydayers out there who are listening Monday through Friday every week aren't going to miss it, but make sure you don't miss it either. Subscribe to the Locked on Titans podcast, Monday

through Friday, Tennessee Titans content on all platforms, all year long and always for free. Get subscribed, stay subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast where it's your team every day. But we talked about Levis. He should start.

Trade. Should the Titans trade Malik Willis? Should the Titans trade Malik Willis? Should the Titans trade Ryan Tannehill? Who should be cut instead? Let me know what you guys think. Start, trade, or cut. Let me know what you guys think down below in the comments. But for me, talking about a trade,

the easy answer is Ryan Tannehill. Number one, there is no trade market for Malik Willis. No one is trading for Malik Willis. No one is trading for Malik Willis. Not a sixth, not a fifth, not a seventh, not a sandwich. It's not happening, okay? It's not happening. So Tannehill is the only one with the option to be traded, in my opinion. And look, a Tannehill trade may not happen right now. Tampa Bay,

they'd probably rather go with Baker Mayfield. I'd rather the Titans have Baker Mayfield than Ryan Tannehill because it means they'd probably be worse. And the Titans should be losing games because they need to rebuild the team. But either way, they'd rather pay $5 million to Baker Mayfield and be terrible and get a good quarterback next year than pay Ryan Tannehill $27 million in salary

and be five, six, seven, eight wins. That's the worst place to be in the NFL. So Tampa Bay's probably not going to do that. Washington, I think the commanders are in tank mode. Going with Sam Howell, that's the move. We mode. Going with Sam Howell? That's the move? We're going to start Sam Howell? Come on now.

Come on now. So, I think the Commanders would be a good landing spot for Ryan Tannehill in a trade, but they're tanking. Okay? So, for me, other than the Atlanta Falcons, who, they say they're going with Desmond Ritter,

but listen, they're going into year three of Arthur Smith. They need to win some games this year. And the NFC South is probably worse now than the AFC South. That division is taterable. So Atlanta's going to have a chance to win. They have Bijon.

They have Pitts. They have Drake London. They added a bunch of veterans on defense. Atlanta's trying to win this year. Do they really believe in Desmond Ritter? Is Desmond Ritter ready to lead them to the playoffs? I have my doubts.

I have my doubts. So maybe working something salary wise, Atlanta would want Ryan Tannehill. And maybe that would work out. Now if it's not one of those three teams right there, Tampa, Washington, Atlanta, if it's not one of those three teams right there, Tampa, Washington, Atlanta, if it's not one of those three teams, then you might have

to wait until a quarterback gets hurt in the summer. So the Titans may hang on to Ryan Tannehill for that reason. Also, let me throw this out there. If the Titans cut Ryan Tannehill right now, just a regular standard cut right now, they're going to save $18 million in salary cap. I think 17.8 is the exact figure. Okay? But if the Titans cut Ryan Tannehill after June the 1st, they save

$27 million. So, if you're the Titans, it probably makes sense to hold on to Tannehill for a little while, at least until you get past June 1st, and then maybe into training camp.

If somebody gets hurt, you can make a trade. So to me, I want the Titans to commit to the youth movement, and I want Will Levis to start. But I'm okay if the Titans show patience here and don't get rid of Ryan Tannehill right away because both of the best avenues to get rid of him, cutting him after June the 1st or trading him to another team, will probably come in the summertime. So, I think Ryan Tannehill should be traded,

not cut, but at the end of the day, commit to the youth movement. If you can't find somebody to trade for Ryan Tannehill, I think then you have to go ahead and release him after June the 1st before training camp and give the reins to Will Levis. Because I also think that there would need to be some changes in the quarterback room outside of just cutting Tannehill if that's the direction that they need to go. So we're going to talk about that. Talk about what should happen with Malik Willis. Obviously it's down to cut. I would cut Malik Willis, but I'll tell you what

the Titans need to do in combination with cutting Malik Willis. That's going to be incredibly important as well. So we're going to cap off today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. We're playing a little start trade cut with the three quarterbacks on the Titans roster. I would start Will Levis and go with a full youth movement. I would try to trade Ryan Tannehill if possible, even for a fourth round pick, a fifth round pick, anything that I could get.

It might be easier to do in the summer if there are injuries and, you know, money wise, it would make sense as well to wait for that. But I would rather trade Tannehill. And then when it comes to cut, we are here with Malik Willis, and I'll explain why it was such an easy decision to cut Malik in this exercise. Before we get into it, though, I do want to thank you guys again for making the

Locked on Titans podcast your first listen every day. We had the biggest week of all time for the Locked on Podcast Network last week. I cannot thank you all enough for consistently tuning into the show. Of course, shout out to my everydayers out there listening Monday through Friday. You guys are the bedrock of the show.

Can't thank you enough. If you guys are new, make sure you get subscribed. Stay subscribed. It's Monday through Friday. Tennessee Titans content on all platforms all year round, always for free. You're not going to beat that anywhere else. Tomorrow, we're going to look at the wide receiver market,

free agency, cut candidates, trade targets. We're going to go over all of that, so make sure you don't miss that. And as we go through the week, we're going to be doing breakdowns into prospects as well that the Titans just drafted. We're going to go over their undrafted free agent class eventually as well. So a lot drafted. We're going to go over their undrafted free agent class eventually as well.

So a lot of content coming your way. Make sure that you stick with us here at the Locked on Titans podcast. But getting back in to Malik Willis. I wrote an article today on Sports Illustrated or yesterday when a lot of you guys were listening to this. Basically saying that the Will Levis selection looks like the end of the road

for Malik Willis. First, Josh Dobbs takes his job after being with the team for about a week in the biggest games of the year. And what I want to say about that is Malik Willis needed a year of development, yes.

But he should be further along in November and December than he was in training camp. Than he was in the preseason. He shouldn't be in the same spot as he was in the preseason that he is at the end of the year. He needed one year of development. That means that you should be developing throughout that one year still. People act like it's a step, like a step up.

Like Malik Willis was just at one spot for his whole rookie year, and then all of a sudden it goes to year two, and he takes this big step up. Like in Madden, when you get development points, and you hold off, and you're like, I'm not going to use any development points this year. I'm going to wait until the off season next year and advance everybody.

That's not how it works in real life. In real life, your XP points, your development points, they go on right away. Okay? So Malik should have been better in December than he was in September. And he wasn't.

And that's why Josh Dobbs takes his job. And it was at that moment, before that Dallas Cowboys game in Nashville, I was at the game. I was in the stadium. And I told everybody, they have given up on Malik Willis. Mike Vrabel has given up on Malik Willis. And it seems pretty obvious, and to anybody outside the Titans organization, On Malik Willis. Mike Vrabel has given up on Malik Willis.

And it seems pretty obvious, and to anybody outside the Titans organization, it seems pretty obvious that Malik Willis was a John Robinson pick. And Mike Vrabel didn't want Malik Willis all along. So when Malik didn't progress well enough from preseason to the end of the year, well, it made it easy for Mike Rabel to sit the kid. Now, throughout the offseason, we've gotten a bunch of reports that the Titans have lost faith in Malik Willis, and then they went and traded for Levis.

So, yeah. Duh. It's confirmed. It's obvious. They have lost faith in Malik Willis. If they had faith that Malik Willis was going to be anything, they don't trade picks to move up to get Will Levis. And the Titans were trying to jump into the back of the first round

to go get Levis. So, yeah. Duh. They've given up on Malik Willis. He's going to be cut. It's over. All right? Now, the Titans may carry Malik Willis through training camp.

Just to be fair, give him all the time he needs. You need a camp body. You need a camp arm to be in there as well. And I know that Mike Rabel came out of that press conference and said, Ronnie Tannehill's a starter. Malik Willis is a backup. Will Levis is QB3. I mean, do you guys really believe that?

I would hope that we would all be mature enough to know that that is a Mike Rabel, everyone's got to earn it on this team, type old school thing, and that there is 0% chance Malik Willis is over Will Levis on the depth chart by the time we get to the season. I mean, give me a break. So,

there's just no room. The Titans aren't going to carry three quarterbacks. So, they need to cut Malik Willis. And what they're not going to do is, they're not going to start Will Levis and then have Malik Willis as the backup. So, here's what they need to do. They need to start Will Levis.

See what they have in him. If he's bad, you're bad. Take another quarterback at the top of the draft next year. If he's good, then good. Maybe the Titans don't like go anywhere because he's still a rookie, but you know, hey, this guy's good. So it's a win-win if you start Levis.

They need to trade Tannehill for anything that they can. And if they can't, you just cut him. And then Malik Willis just, come on guys, it's over. It's over. Now, if it goes like that, and Tannehill and Willis are gone, and you have Levis, then the Titans need to bring in a veteran quarterback behind Willis, or behind Will Levis.

Willis and Will Levis are too close. It's throwing me off. But the Titans need to bring in another veteran quarterback who's far cheaper than Ryan Tannehill, and have him play behind Will Levis so that there's a veteran in the room with Levis. That right there is the move. You need a veteran with Levis,

but you don't need to pay him $36 million like you're paying Tannehill. And listen, I know what everyone's going to say in the comments, and it's probably fair to say it, but Malik didn't get a real chance to develop. Okay? He didn't. a real chance to develop. Okay? He didn't. When he played last year, he wasn't expected to play in year one, so already.

And then with the Titans O-line, wide receivers, the offensive coaching, I mean, no one's going to succeed in that scenario that isn't an absolute absurd freak like Mahomes or Burrow or something like that, you know, one of the elites. And Malik Willis isn't going to be an elite even if he gets better. So although it's not fair to Malik Willis that he didn't have an ideal circumstance to grow, I think there's also the reality here that there is no development circumstance where Malik Willis would be a starting quarterback

in the NFL. You could have max development time. Ideal development. I mean, you could put Malik Willis on the Eagles. And I just don't think he's got it, folks. He just doesn't have it. Any development

situation you could put Malik in, he's not going to turn into a starting NFL quarterback. He doesn't have the competitive drive. He doesn't have the base, the foundation that you need. Like I said earlier in the show, the guy had never taken a snap under center before. So, it's just too much development,

and I don't believe it would be possible at the NFL level. He started out at too low of a level. No matter what situation you put him in, he can't develop into a pro quarterback. Maybe you believe otherwise. That is a belief thing. But from what I've seen, that's where I land.

If being a starting NFL quarterback is a 7 out of 10, Malik is at a 1. And there is nobody that can develop him 6 spots up. Nobody. It's not possible. He just doesn't have it. So, for me, you start Will Levis. You trade Tannehill, if you can.

And you cut Malik Willis. If you can't trade Tannehill, then you cut Tannehill after June 1st. You cut Malik Willis and you bring in't trade Tannehill, then you cut Tannehill after June 1st. You cut Malik Willis and you bring in a backup veteran for cheap. Save yourself the money. See what you got in Levis. Commit, Titans. Commit

to the youth movement. Quit trying to play both sides of the fence. Because when you walk down two paths, you walk down the wrong one. But that's going to do it for me today. Folks, again, tomorrow will be all about wide receiver. As always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans. you