The Ringer NFL Show - The Play Sheet [VIDEO]: Will Levis Made a Splash in His NFL Debut

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

The Ringer’s Ben Solak breaks down the film from Will Levis's debut for the Tennessee Titans, in which he threw four touchdown passes. Is Levis the QB of the future in Tennessee, or is he still a somewhat flawed rookie? What is the Titans coaching staff doing to play to his strengths, most notably his cannon of an arm? This and more in this week's episode of 'The Play Sheet.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy, I'm Ben Solak. This is the play sheet. So weekly episode we do comes out on Wednesdays on the ringer NFL feed, and it is a video pod. We're breaking down some Will Levis film today. So, open your Spotify app, click into the episode, watch the video, see the plays, enjoy the show. The opening script, Will Levis to go, baby. It's been a great year for rookie quarterbacks. We've had week one starters and C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young. We've done videos on both of those guys.

We would have done a video on Anthony Richardson, too, because he was sick, but then he got injured if we couldn't do it. We've seen Dorian Thompson Play, we've seen Aiden O'Connell play, and now we have finally the fourth of the four quarterbacks that were big names entering the pre-draft process, Will Levis. And what did they do? Levis threw for four touchdowns in his first career start. He has to leave the second quarterback in league history to do so,

joining, weirdly enough, Titans rookie quarterback, Marcus Moriota. This, by the way, is why using touchdowns to measure performance is not good. Touchdowns are like island events, right? They're very noisy. A guy gets tackled at the one. won and it's not a touchdown. A defense of back falls over and is a touchdown.

You can't just be like, all, touchdowns equal good, guy played well, as tempting as that is to do with Levis right now. There was, however, good stuff on Levis' film. That's what I want to talk about today. The stuff that should get Titans fans excited

about the potential of this guy being the quarterback of the future. I mean, they scored 28 points, and the Titans hadn't done that since 2021. So something here worked, and to find out what worked, we're going to play action. The number one thing,

that Will Levis showed in this win, the Falcons was his arm talent and he has just oodles he has heaps heaps of arm talent and this was something that we talked about in our pre-draft scouting video on will levis what we did for the play sheet roll a clip levis is an easy and explosive thrower of the football and if you've been like watching all of our episodes on the old the quarterbacks from earlier this week and you're like ben this is the fourth time in four episodes that you've said levis is a good thrower of the football yeah it's just a talented quarterback class i don't know what you want for me levis could chuck the pill levis can get great distance

on downfield throws, but perhaps more impressively and importantly is the velocity he gets, especially when throwing to intermediate windows. You can do it off play action, which is important because he runs a lot of play action, and from weird platforms with the pressure on the ground in front of him, he's got a laser beam and that allows him

to get some real nice tight window throws. Now in that video, we were talking a lot about like intermediate throws, window throws, velocity. This game against the Falcons, there was some velocity stuff, but it was way more about the moon ball. Okay, this is touched on number one. You know how usually I start,

but drawing the play design. Like, what's the route concept? They have DeAndre Hopkins, he's running very far down the field, and then they have Traylenburgs running across her. This is the whole concept, right? They're in max protect.

Everybody is staying in. This is play action. Land on your back foot. And very simply, you're making a choice here, or are you taking this one-on-one to the outside? Which, if the Falcons were, like, in a different coverage,

and they were getting a deep-middle safety, like you could say, okay, like he's running here, so Jesse Bates takes him. Richie Grant gets deep. Richie Grant's not going to get to this throw from being outside of the hash. Like, that doesn't even matter. If they were initially in some sort of single high look and you're worried about this

safety's leaking this way, like maybe you have to take this route. But in general, the Falcons are telling you right now, we are going to let AJ Terrell play one-on-one with DeAndre Hopkins. We like this matchup. And so Will Levis says, okay, well, I also like this matchup because DeAndre Hopkins is very good. And so he's just going to launch this thing. The pump fake down here does absolutely nothing.

This is high key performative. I don't know what this is doing. But it just sends it. This is explicitly offensive pass interference. And the throw, like, you want this throw to get out here. You want it to get to the actual hash is on the sideline. Because when you leave it hanging inside, if Terrell doesn't get yanked by Hopkins, it's going to be easy for Terrell to play on that ball because he has inside leverage on Hopkins.

So it's not a perfect throw, but it's a freaking launch. Like, it's a Trebushie shot. He's on the 45-yard line. 50 yards in the air, dude. And so, okay, Hopkins finds the ball early, and he whips Terrell around, and he catches it, and it's a touchdown. And so, like, have we learned anything tremendous about Willa Levus

processing, placement, leverage? No, like, it's, there's a very, like, simple read, and it's not even that accurate of a throw, but he threw the ball very, very far. This is touchdown number two, and this is, like, less arm strength far, more arm strength speed. It's still not a challenging throw,

and it's still not a challenging read, but it's more like just normal football. ball and it's nice to see. This is the more so the stuff we were talking about in the scouting video. They're running drive, right? Everybody knows drive. Your mama knows drive. We're going to run this in cut here and then behind it. We're going to come in with a shallow cross. So we just got a high low right here, right? And what Levis is going to do, which he did all the time over the old Miss film. This classic stuff. He's going to look front side, right? He's going to look to this play side. Look at the safety. Get a little shoulder pump and then just immediately reset his hallway and

throw this. And the main thing with the throw is the velocity. Watch how fast as ball is. And it'd be nice to hit hop, Hopkins on the face mask here. We go end zone view. He doesn't actually hit Hopkins on the face mask. Actually behind him and Hopkins does what Hopkins does, which like this is actually a challenging catch because your momentum is moving away from it. This is a good grab, but it's the right read from Levis, right?

Running back steps through, pulls this linebacker. This safety is looking at the in cut here. So he's not going to be able to get low on this. And you expect Hopkins to outrun the linebacker on this route. So put it on them and then have Hopkins make you right. Good football player. Six points. Okay.

Touchdown three. We're getting to the cool stuff. This is a design. I like this a lot from Tim Kelly, who's the O.C for the Titans. We're in empty. All right? Empty on second and 10. It is a shot play designed to DeAndre Hopkins, right? We are trying to give love a simplified one read. We know where we're going with the ball. We want to present this. Underneath route here, dig in behind it. That's what we're trying to show Richie Grant. That's the cheese. You notice we're like highlighting Richard Grant a lot in this game yet. Not the best Richard Grant game we've ever seen. So, all right, that's what we're showing, right? We're sitting down here to pull this linebacker down,

and then we're going to throw this dig in behind it, right? And with the Tampa 2 linebacker opening facing this way, this route is going to be open. So Richie, you got to go drive in on this sucker, right? We got him dig and go. Nope. And if you watch, watch Richie Grant and then watch Jesse Bates. Watch the two, because they're both deep half safeties.

They're getting shown different things. But watch how Bates is real good. Bates just keeps gaining depth. Gaining depth, gaining depth, right? You know you have to be deeper than the deepest, right? You're playing cover two here. Grant gets got, right? He bites the cheese a little bit, and then Levis sends this thing.

So it's not a contested window throw, but firstly, it hits Hopkins beautifully, right? I mean, it has to slow up a little bit, but in general, great throw. He catches this thing at like the 16. Levis is throwing this thing from his 31, and watch how easily he throws this ball. This time the pump fake actually does something. Like, it actually does help pull Grant a little bit. So we like the pump fake, and now this throw. Just one step.

Just a small step and just a little three-quarters release and the thing sings for 50 yards. Ends of you. I open up, we're looking at Bates. I'll get our eyes to Hopkins. Here comes the dig. Nope, there's a little shoulder pump and then the ease of the throw.

He doesn't try, dude. There's no effort in this at all. All of this brings us to TD4. Touchdown 4 is a freaking good play from Levis. This is a very, very, very challenging throw. We are going to run Nick Westbrook-A-Kina on what initially is going to look like, like, go to the front pylon, like run a corner, run that deep corner, whatever. We're going to sit the wide receiver down here, and then we're going to cross with Yondra Hopkins.

That's what we're showing. In reality, Nick Westbrook-Ka-Kina is going to bend all the way back to this side. And this is, again, the route we want to hit. Tim Kelly, again, OC. This is one-read throw. Like, it's not one-week because it's like actually got. in the progression, but we are trying to explicitly open one dude. We're not just saying like, okay, Levis, like, read up front side, backside, no.

We're telling him like, hey, we're trying to get the ball to this guy, right? Levis on the play action fake is going to boot to his right. So he's going to be, when we run this, outside of the hash, almost halfway between the hash and the numbers, this route's going to break over here. So not only is he throwing this thing from like the 44 yard line and look at the pressure in his lap because, you know, you boot out there, right? When you boo, you know you're going to see pressure. He's throwing this all the way outside of the left numbers.

And not only does he throw this, when you see this route, you expect this throw to take the route over here, right? You're going to pull him back down into the line of scrimmage because just too far to throw this thing up field and take Westbrook Aquina into the end zone. Look at Westbrookicina adjust. He used to go deeper for this. When he breaks this route, he thinks it's going to come like, on the six-yard line.

He's got to go get it in the end zone, man. That's a ludicrous throw. All right, play action fake. Eyes to get, but eyes over here. Westbrookine is just starting to break. Two Falcons in your lap. Just step into the bucket. And send it sweet Christmas.

What's cool is we can, we, I went to find similar plays where the quarterback boots out to the right and then throws this thing outside the numbers to the left that far down the field. And there's not a lot of them. Here's Justin Herbert, ever heard of him, all right? Good football player, big armed fella, chiefs, motion.

He doesn't even get past the hash, right? And they're throwing this right here. He's got to send this thing from the 40. And Herbert gets a little bit more vertical distance on it. It throws a freaking javelin, but still, wow. Want to see Aaron Rogers just like not hit this throw at all? Miss it, be short, throw an interception. Is what happens. Boot gets outside of the hash. Here comes that bend her all the way back to the other pylon, and it's just way short and it's picked. Tough throw. Now, it's not that, okay, if you can throw this one route and score touchdown on it, you're a good quarterback, right?

Like, Zach Wilson had that route. CJ Bethard threw it for the Jags one time. I don't know. Regardless, what it does show you is that the staff understands that if Levis is going to be successful, he's going to be successful, launching the thing. And that is both correct and also, like, a good sign for Levis because, hey, like, explosive plays matter. This is really valuable.

What these downfield shots do is they allow Levis to still have positive throwing days, while the snap-to-snap consistency isn't necessarily there for him, and also just for the Titans' offense as a whole, where besides Hopkins, they don't have a ton of great receivers. And offensive line-wise, they're in a really rough spot. In this game against the Falcons, Levis averaged 0.13 EPA for dropback. That's above average. It's a positive day. Average is 0.0.

His success rate was 31%. League average is 44%. So on average, Levis had few. Fewer successful plays, fewer plays with positive EPA than the average quarterback. But the plays that he did have that were positive were so overwhelmingly positive because he's launching 50-yard touchdown passes to D'Andre Hopkins. And that's the world you have to live in when you have an imperfect rookie quarterback. You have to live on those dice rolls, live on those big plays, and Levis is capable of making them.

Is this sustainable? Probably not. Three of Levis's four touchdowns, the really far ones down the field. those were top 10 longest by air yards, according to next gen stats, of touchdowns at all this season. Like, you're not going to do that every week. You're going to get offensive pass interference flags. You're not going to connect on those deep shots. And you're not going to have as good of offensive performances.

We can't hold levice to the bar of just being like the best deep shot merchant in the league that's not fair to the guy. What we can talk about is what he fundamentally is in structure right now, which is a rookie, but a rookie who has some building blocks. Take, for example, this fly is quarter one against the Falcons. is before we knew he was going to throw four touchdowns, right? And this is like a classic rookie situation. We have this deep, deep, deep over. And then I think Hopkins is going to run like a curl or it might potentially be a dig. Maybe it depends on coverage.

We don't end up knowing because Hopkins ends up kind of falling over on the route. So there's a plaction fake. We get to the top. There's Hopkins falling over. Okay. So whatever whatever that's going to be, I'm not sure. What matters is this. If you have this deep over and the deep middle safety is in this body position right now,

this hips facing this way, we are throwing this route. We are throwing this route every single day until the cows come home. Levis knows this. He threw it to Kentucky. It's a critical route for the Titans offense. This ball should be coming out now. Now, this ball's got to be getting out, right? Like the head is turning. This ball, because it's far down the field.

This ball should already be on its way, because there is no way when you're watching this. There is no way the safety is impacting this route. You know he's not. So this ball's got to come out. We end up being a little bit late on this. And because we're late, we let pressure start to come into our laps. and then like, you know, kind of compounding this in here, if you're going to be laid on it and pressure's going to come,

reset your feet, get your feet over here, let the pressure pass you by, and then drive this thing. But instead, Levis tries to throw it with pressure in his lap, which this was a criticism of his coming out. Look at this throwing base right here. Look at how wide these feet are. This looks like Carson Wentz, not good. So these feet get wide, and then we throw this thing without a ton of mustard on it,

without the velocity we need to get it there on time. it still has the distance and ludicrously somehow could have still been completed so we see this and we say okay arm strength like great this is the start of the time we've been talking about the velocity

but there's stuff to clean up mechanically and process wise here it's going to make this throw a lot easier end zone view it looks like he thinks he wants to go to Hopkins it looks like he thinks he wants to get to the dig right so play action fake all right we're looking middle of the field

we see Richie Grant getting on that over route and then right there it looks like he goes to reset the Hopkins sees that Hopkins is falling. He's not in the route. Oh, no, here's pressure. Let me just throw this thing late. Which again, the fact that this ball gets there is nuts.

From an arm strength perspective, from an arm-tale perspective, that's bananas. But we should never get to a spot where we decide we want to try to go find that dig from Hopkins. This all the way should be burks on this over, and we're late to it because we decided to go to that second route. We let pressure get into our lap when we should probably try to reset our feet.

We heave this thing late, and still almost somehow completed, but Richard Grant gets back in the play. This is the sort of thing where you watch and you say, okay, arm strength good, but we're not just watching like a DeAndre Hopkins double move. Now it's like, all right, there's an open receiver, launch that sucker. Now we're seeing, okay, how can processing it and speed in the pocket affect the throws that we can make? This is where Levis can improve, hit these throws more consistently, and then also still be able to throw that double move to Deandre Hopkins, make this Titans offense a little bit more reliable. So Levis's second start because he's starting again. the Steelers, Thursday night football, games tomorrow, can't wait. It's probably not going to be as good as his first.

He had 70 completions and four touchdowns. That's not going to keep happening. We have to be able to temper our expectations for what is, objectively, a second round rookie. He's going to be an imperfect player. And we see those imperfections. We see it on the lateness of the throws and on some of the decisions that he makes. However, we also see the physical talent that allows him to work it.

We see the physical talent that allows him to get drafted and get away with some of that stuff. We see the physical talent that is worth investing in long term for the Titans. The offensive line's going to present problems. The wider C room is going to present problems. But Tim Kelly, the offensive coordinator, he knows where Levis's bread is buttered. He understands how to make a player like this work. Levis knows where his bread is buttered. He knows what he needs to do to succeed.

And the Titans' offense is going to experience a boost just because of that, just because they have a quarterback who's willing to shoot far down the field to DeAndreaulde, and let Hop make him right. So is this CJ Stroud film? Or like you're watching Stroud and you're like, holy smokes, this guy's incredible? No. But it's also not Bryce Young film where you have no idea what direction the offense is going.

You've no idea how this player is going to succeed. It's somewhere in the middle. And the more film we get, the more we'll know about what Levis might be as a future starter in the league. And that'll do it for us here on the play sheet. Thank you to Will Levis for throwing the ball very far down the field to DeAndre Hopkins.

Thank you to DeAndre Hopkins for running very far down the field and catching it. Thank you to Corey McConnell for producing the episode. Thank you to you for watching the episode. Wow. Go watch more of them and then subscribe and then keep watching them.