The NFL season begins Wednesday night with a Super Bowl rematch of Patriots at Seahawks, and former Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis remains unemployed.

The Titans officially waived Levis from their 53-man roster on cutdown day, Aug. 30, and a full week and a half later, the 33rd overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft has had just one workout for a practice squad spot with the New York Jets. He did not get signed after that workout. As Week 1 kicks off, Will Levis is joining the wrong company in NFL quarterback history.

For the entirety of this offseason and even the 2025 offseason after Tennessee drafted Cam Ward 1st overall, the expectation was that the Titans would be able to trade Levis somewhere. That never materialized. 

Levis started 21 games in his first two years, threw 21 touchdown passes, but had too many turnovers, too many bad memes, and too much bad play. After an exciting debut against the Atlanta Falcons where he threw four touchdown passes in a win, including deep ball bombs to DeAndre Hopkins and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, his career looked like it had upside. It went the other direction.

The complicated timeline of Will Levis’s career in Tennessee

The Titans went into 2024 with a new head coach in Brian Callahan and spent heavily in free agency, adding center Lloyd Cushenberry, running back Tony Pollard, and wide receiver Calvin Ridley to help maximize Levis’s second-round pick contract and see if he could be the guy. He wasn’t the guy. Levis had a treacherous second year with far too many terrible, “what are you doing” moments. He dealt with a shoulder injury, was benched on and off throughout the season, and Tennessee ultimately earned the 1st overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft where they took Ward without hesitation.

After electing to have shoulder surgery right before 2025 training camp, which ended his entire third season, Levis came back under new head coach Robert Saleh and new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll following Callahan’s firing six games into Ward’s rookie season. But Levis did not perform well enough for the Titans to keep him on the 53-man roster, and he did not perform well enough for any other team to offer trade consideration. Sometimes that’s a demand issue. If no quarterbacks get hurt and no team needs to fill a spot, there’s no reason to trade for one. But the result is the same.

The Mount Rushmore of bad quarterback names in modern NFL history

Reclamation QB projects across the NFL have worked before. Sam Darnold just won a Super Bowl. Baker Mayfield just signed the biggest contract in Tampa Bay Buccaneers history. Both were top-5 picks who failed with their first team, bounced around, and found an opportunity. Geno Smith failed with the Jets, bounced around, succeeded with Seattle, had a down year with the Las Vegas Raiders, and is now back with the Jets as a starter. Even Marcus Mariota, right here in Nashville, played out his rookie contract with the Titans and has continued to make a living as a solid backup with the Raiders, Falcons, and Washington Commanders. Gardner Minshew and Jameis Winston have done similar things.

But that’s the good QB company. Will Levis is not in the good QB company. He’s entering into the worst of the worst QB company.

Going back to the 2011 NFL Draft, when the rookie wage scale began giving rookies four-year contracts with a fifth-year option for first-round picks, 46 quarterbacks were drafted in the top 40 from 2011 through 2023. Of those 46, only four were flat-out unemployed during the regular season before their rookie contract expired.

Johnny Manziel, the 22nd overall pick by Cleveland, was cut in March of 2016 and went the entire season unemployed. 

Paxton Lynch, the 26th overall pick by Denver in 2016, was waived on roster cut downs at the end of the 2018 preseason and was unemployed for the entirety of that season.

The late Dwayne Haskins, the 15th overall pick by Washington in 2019, was released Dec. 28, 2020, with just one game left in his second season, and the late Haskins signed a futures contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers roughly three weeks later in January. 

And now Will Levis, the 33rd overall pick in 2023, cut Aug. 30 and is unemployed entering Week 1.

That is 8.7% of those 46 quarterbacks. The other 91.3% were never unemployed during a regular-season week before their rookie contract ended. And there are some truly terrible NFL quarterbacks among that 91.3% grouping, including five others with the bust label who were traded at least once during their rookie contract window:

• Zach Wilson: Jets traded to Denver before Year 4.
• Trey Lance: 49ers traded to Dallas before Year 3.
• Justin Fields: Bears traded to Pittsburgh before Year 4.
• Mac Jones: Patriots traded to Jacksonville before Year 4.
• Kenny Pickett: Steelers traded to Philadelphia before Year 3.

Paxton Lynch is the best comparison

Manziel had significant off-the-field situations that caused his contract to be terminated after just two seasons. Levis doesn’t have any of those issues. Haskins barely qualifies because he was cut with one game remaining in the season and signed with Pittsburgh on a futures/reserve contract just three weeks later. 

Lynch is the cleanest comparison. Denver waived him right before his third season, nobody signed him for the rest of 2018, and the Seahawks eventually brought him in on a future reserves deal in January 2019.

Even quarterbacks who failed early and got cut still found work faster than Levis. Brandon Weeden, the 22nd overall pick in 2012, was released by Cleveland after just two years, but the Dallas Cowboys signed him six days later. Josh Rosen, the 10th overall pick in 2018, was traded to Miami, then waived at final cuts before Year 3 of his rookie deal, and Tampa Bay signed him to their practice squad before Week 1. 

Will Levis isn’t even Josh Rosen right now. Rosen still had a job in the NFL by the time the season started.

It’s a rough spot for the former Titans quarterback. He hasn’t played in a regular-season football game since January 2025, and the league is moving on without him.