Will Levis has opportunity to re-insert himself into Titans QB plans by conquering impossible task against Vikings
Will Levis is one game into his final 9-game audition to be more than a 2025 backup quarterback for the Tennessee Titans. His first game back from injury against the Chargers didn't go great for the team as a whole, but Levis himself put a strong foot forward as he looks to demonstrate growth and […]
Will Levis is one game into his final 9-game audition to be more than a 2025 backup quarterback for the Tennessee Titans. His first game back from injury against the Chargers didn't go great for the team as a whole, but Levis himself put a strong foot forward as he looks to demonstrate growth and development. He looked like a different player from the chaotic and reckless Will we saw to begin the season. It was far from perfect, but it laid the groundwork for him to make strides both statistically and narratively towards potentially being "the guy" again.
Unfortunately for him, Brian Flores' Vikings defense comes to town in Week 11.
The Vikings Quarterback Blender
This could be a complete disaster for Levis. I mean, it could be really bad. If you've paid any attention to the NFL this season, then you've surely heard about the work Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores has done with this Minnesota unit.
Flores is a QB grim reaper. He and his players have had passers in a blender for 10 weeks straight. The Vikings lead the league in Interceptions (15) and in total turnovers generated (20), averaging more than two takeaways in each game.
The only QB the Vikings have faced to avoid throwing an interception was Jared Goff, though he didn't play a clean game against them either: he had two fumbles. Minnesota picked off Flacco, Stafford, and Purdy once each. They got two against CJ Stroud, Daniel Jones, and Mac Jones. And they intercepted Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love three times apiece. It's been a bloodbath out there.
The Secret To Flores' Success
But what makes them such a formidable unit to face? Let's ask the guy tasked with game planning against them:
"One, good players and that's the first thing" said Brian Callahan on Wednesday. "Those guys do a really good job on defense and just the personnel in general. I think Jonathan Greenard is maybe the most underrated edge player in football right now. I mean, he's playing fantastic. I think he's really good. And they've got a collection of veteran players that are smart, they can handle the scheme. They're really intelligent between Stephon Gilmore and Harrison Smith, it's a good group. Ivan Pace is really—jumps off the tape particularly as a blitzer. He's a really good player."
As is always the case, having good players is the first requirement for a truly dominant unit. As good a coordinator as Flores is, he can't manufacture an elite team on his own. But with great players, which he has, he's able to maximize them unlike other coordinators can. Callahan explains how here, in a long quote that's worth reading in it's entirety if you want to understand what's going on here:
"So good players is the starting point and then you add the multiplicity and what I mean by that is they can play their base structure fronts against your 11 personnel. They can play base, they can play nickel and they sort of have this complexity that they like to present to you. And on top of that, they'll present five and six and seven and eight guys on the line of scrimmage, all in threatening positions. They'll bring all-out pressure, or they'll present the same exact look and they will drop out and they'll play some version of 2 Tampa, some version of Three. So they do a really good job of marrying their pressure looks to their drop-out looks. And so, you have to have an answer for the max pressure because if you don't do anything, you're going to get sacked. But then they also have the complement where whatever they're trying to get you to do and then they drop out and play coverage and now you're in max protection against a full coverage units here. Lessening the amount of guys you can get out in the pattern because you're worried about the protection, and then you're also having to block those pressures when they come. So just a really smart scheme, the multiplicity creates a complexity to it. You have to, in the run game —there's multiple fronts, multiple spots. Obviously, with (Brian) Flores's time in New England, you see shades of a lot of that in terms of the multiplicity of their fronts, but really well-coached, really well-designed scheme and obviously have made life really, really hard for quarterbacks thus far this season."
Put simply: the Vikings make QBs question what they think they know. And they do it really, really well. Quarterbacks playing at their best are clear-eyed. They're seeing the game well. The best passers in the league are the veterans who come into each game with a mental advantage, because they've seen it all before. Flores does an incredible job of making even those advanced football minds make mistakes.
So one can only imagine what an inexperienced, developing QB like Will Levis stands to see and feel out there. We asked him about the matchup, and he echoed the sentiment of his coaches:
"Yeah, they're a great team. They're where they are for a reason. I think the biggest challenge for us is just the multiplicity of looks that we're going to get from them. They'll get to anything from anything. They want to give the illusion of pressure a lot of the time. And we're going to have to be able to react post-snap, kind of just relax our eyes, feel the space of the defense and feel like we got some good plays to exploit those areas that we think could be there."
We've painted a sufficiently grim picture for the Titans offense. Now the question becomes: how do you prepare Levis to conquer this seemingly impossible task?
Preparing Levis For Battle
Brian Callahan gave a good answer to this question on Wednesday.
"Well, you have to play our rules, too. It's a little bit more about how we execute in what we do, as opposed to trying to get too caught up in everything that they do. And there's a—you have to have a patience involved in it. It's a difficult scheme to get ready for. So he's going to have to make sure he's spending the time and we're making sure we're putting him in position to have the answers when he needs them. And that's our job, to get him to that point, try to make it as simple and easy for him as possible, because he's going to have to diagnose a lot of things on the field that are challenging. So all those things are going to be really big factors in his ability to have success against this defense. And I think we’ll put together a good plan for him."
The Titans both publicly and privately are genuinely optimistic about the plan they've put in place to allow Levis to succeed against Minnesota. Luckily for Levis, fans (at least those that understand the situation) won't be shocked if things go sideways in Week 11. The Vikings defense was practically built in a lab specifically to crush the Will Levis's of the world.
But if he somehow performs well, this spot could be a massive resume-builder as he works to regain the trust of fans and Titans decision makers in the future. If he merely looks like he did against the Chargers last week; playing safe and boring, not falling into the traps the defense lays, making the big play here and there that differentiates starters from backups… It would go a very long way for him. Interest in his final 7 games would be piqued.
The bar isn't set too high right now, but the opponent he's been tasked with will make it very hard to clear nonetheless. Can a man with little to lose put together a statement performance at home this weekend? That question alone is reason enough to tune in and find out.
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