Even with the Tennessee Titans trading up in the second round to draft Kentucky quarterback Will Levis with the 33rd overall pick, Titans' second-year QB Malik Willis is entering the 2023 season with the same mindset as before.

Get better. Prove yourself. Win the job. Those remain Willis' main objectives as he prepares for a position battle in camp this summer. 

In an interview with Nick Suss of The Tennessean, Willis' private quarterback coach Sean McEvoy provided an inside look into the 23-year-old's offseason and current mentality.

It goes without saying that 2022 was not an ideal rookie year for Willis in Tennessee. After being drafted in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft to be Ryan Tannehill's future successor, Willis rode a roller coaster of a season all the way to the bottom of the Titans' depth chart.

Willis went from being benched in a preseason game by Mike Vrabel for not throwing the ball or executing the offense correctly to winning the backup job over Logan Woodside and being thrust into action after a Tannehill injury.

Willis appeared in seven games, making three starts under center for Tennessee as a rookie. The Titans went 1-2 in those starts, and Willis did not throw a single touchdown or reach 100 passing yards in a game. With a division title on the line in Week 18 and Tannehill still on the shelf, Vrabel and the Titans turned to Josh Dobbs, who was freshly signed off of the Detroit Lions practice squad, to lead the offense.

The Titans' coaching staff made it clear that they did not feel Willis was ready to play at the end of last season. His body was always one step behind his brain, and Willis' timing and footwork left a lot to be desired. But McEvoy and Willis are encouraged that those problems are fixable.

"The promising piece was realizing the things that maybe held you back from playing at a higher level are the easiest things to fix," McEvoy told Nick Suss regarding Willis' offseason. "Something like that, the timing and footwork, that's a repetition game. That’s a 10,000 hours thing. Get your 2,000 reps a day of doing the footwork over and over and over until it becomes automatic and you don’t think about it."

While Willis has been putting in the time off the field to improve, the Titans have been exploring other options. Just one year after using a third round pick on Willis in the draft, Tennessee made an aggressive move to bring Levis in as the quarterback of the future. 

Mike Vrabel told the media in a press conference that Levis would enter camp as the Titans' QB3, with Willis as the backup and Tannehill as the starter. But we all know how quickly that can change, and Levis will be afforded every opportunity to work his way up.

"I think it’s like getting news that you didn’t want. I think that’s the best way to look at it," McEvoy said to Suss and The Tennessean. "You knew there was a possibility they were going to take a quarterback, either in the first round or the first three rounds. … If you’re basing on when you last saw Malik in December, that was a guy the coaches perceived wasn’t ready to play. So if you’re looking forward at that quarterback room, there’s no ‘We’re definitely sure, 100% locked in with him’ guy. So I think it makes sense to add another person in that room."

While he may be disappointed to hear the news, Willis is not backing down from a fight. Willis spent the entire offseason working with McEvoy four times a week on the  specific areas of his game that Mike Vrabel, Tim Kelly, and Pat O'Hara suggested he progress. 

"Everyone’s clear that the big issue late in the season was that they didn’t feel like he was where they needed him to be to start those last couple weeks," McEvoy told Suss about the instruction Willis got from his Titans coaches. "Malik just looks at himself there. Obviously there’s other factors that contribute to how ready a quarterback is. But all Malik is worried about is what did he do and what can he do better and just making sure that’s never a situation that happens again."

"I think the learning piece for Malik is understanding it’s different now. It’s more important that you’re on time executing the offense the way a guy with less ability to extend would do it. It’s almost like he needs to play more like Logan Woodside than Malik Willis at certain times."

I'm not sure I'd consider "playing like Logan Woodside" to be sound advice from a quarterback coach, but Willis certainly needs to work on executing the offense without relying too heavily on his ability to escape the pocket. 

Unlike Levis at Kentucky, Willis did not run a pro-style offense at Liberty. Getting comfortable under center and going through progressions in play-action will take some getting used to. 

Hopefully for Willis' sake all the time put in pays off and the bar remains a bit higher than…Logan Woodside.