Caleb Harris
Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis had an up-and-down rookie season.
He began his career with an electric four-touchdown performance against the Atlanta Falcons, but then threw just four touchdowns and four interceptions in his final eight games. He had two games with a rating above 130 and three with a rating below 70. Levis took an astronomical 28 sacks in nine games, giving him a sack rate of 9.9%. He had potential interceptions dropped at the highest rate among qualified passers, via Tru Media, but he was also the most aggressive quarterback in the game. NFLranking first in average depth of target, which helped him create explosive plays at the third-highest rate in the NFL (11% of his drops resulted in a completion of at least 20 yards).
It’s hard to imagine how much of that was due to Levis and how much was due to the offensive infrastructure the Titans surrounded him with. Tennessee had one of the thinnest pass-catching corps in the NFL and arguably its worst offensive line in 2023. The team also played a conservative Derrick Henry-based style of offense until it was trailing in games and then piling on each more and more in Levis Shoulders.
Things will be different in 2024. The Titans have a new coaching staff led by Brian Callahan, the former Bengals offensive coordinator. They plan to be aggressive in releasing the ball and have reshaped their squad accordingly. They signed center Lloyd Cushenberry in free agency, along with running back Tony Pollard and wide receivers Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd, and then hired JC Latham to upgrade the line, which will now be coached by Callahan’s father: the legendary coach O. -line Bill Callahan.
Boyd, for one, thinks all of these changes will be good for Levis’ development.
“I know he can go out there and play football,” Boyd said, via Sirius XM NFL Radio. “And another thing I know, he probably went out there and did too much. But now he has point guards. He has guys. I think he can cut back a little bit, relax and trust his point guards more.”
Adding Pollard, Ridley and Boyd to the current Tyjae Spears, DeAndre Hopkins, Treylon Burks and Chigoziem Okonkwo now at least gives the Titans something resembling an NFL-caliber skill position group. And that’s something Boyd is used to, too, from his time in Cincinnati.
“I’m familiar with being in a room full of game designers. Guys that can just go out there and play hard,” Boyd said, noting he also knows the key to success for a group like that. “I think the most important thing for the entire group is to be selfless.”
There are a lot of mouths to feed in Tennessee’s new offense, and not everyone will necessarily get the volume of opportunities they’re used to. But that’s a much better problem than the one the Titans had last year, where there simply wasn’t enough talent to field a viable offense.
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