Clearing Out the Smoke: Will Levis
Get 20% off forever by clicking the button below.
We are officially a month away from the NFL draft, and that means smokescreen season is going to get even smokier now that Pro Days are winding down. So, it’s a good time to sort through some narratives, rumors, and storylines.
I also think a lot of times the information highway gets into a traffic log jam, so it’s important to bring some things to the forefront when discussing prospects and NFL teams. You can get into this echo chamber fairly easily this time of year.
So, I am going to give you my thoughts and some factual evidence on a few topics of interest to me over the next few weeks, and today I am going to start with Will Levis.
Will Levis: I Don’t See It
I am not just hating on Will Levis because people perceive it as the trendy thing to do, I have been against Levis since the middle of the SEC season in 2022. I just didn’t ever see it. That won’t prevent people from being Levis supporters, and that is their prerogative, but I think there is enough evidence on film, analyzing data, and looking at trends, that Levis ain’t it.
First, I put the chances of the Titans even thinking Levis is their kind of quarterback at 1%. Both Mike Vrabel and Ran Carthon have talked about wanting players who play fast, can make all the throws, limit turnovers, have anticipation, and are accurate when throwing the football. Levis is slow to throw, slow to scan the field, has no touch or feel with his passes, is a turnover machine, and has major mechanical issues that hinder his accuracy.
If all of that sounds familiar, that’s because that is exactly how you would describe Malik Willis. So, when fans say they want Will Levis, just show them the Will Levis at home here in Nashville that only costs a third round pick.
To no one’s surprise, there was a big Will Levis highlight from his Pro day. He threw on air versus no defender and launched a ball deep down almost the entire length of the field. If that sounds familiar because there are throws like that from at least once a year.
Last year it was Malik Willis, this year it will be both Will Levis and Anthony Richardson. Now, I can be real, Levis has NFL arm strength. He will make three or four wow throws that look incredible, the only problem is those throws are so few and far between game to game.
Levis has zero consistency, well at least zero of the good kind of consistency. He is consistently inconsistent with his footwork and he is consistent throwing only piss missiles. In the flat? Piss missile. Five yards in front of him? Piss missile. Everything is at maximum power all the time. No feel or touch as a passer.
So, you have a QB with mechanic issues, accuracy issues, messy footwork, no feel or touch for the game, and rarely has used his cannon of an arm to his advantage. The last part is the most surprising to me, the lack of deep ball success. Here are his stats and rankings from 2021 and 2022 when it comes to deep ball/big arm stats:
2021
4.1% Big Time Throw Rate (97th)
812 deep yards (38th)
9.5 yards average depth of target (70th)
2022
2.3% BTT (118th)
541 deep yards (75th)
8.6 yards aDOT (89th)
I watched seven games of Levis when they were on television, because of A Football Show, I needed to broaden my SEC game intake, and I had heard all off-season how Levis was awesome. None of that showed up in 2022. He was objectively terrible this last season. Now, this is where you get people coming with the excuses.
People will blame the OC. Well, that OC comes from the Shanahan coaching tree, and is implementing a pro style offense. Did he implement it poorly? Possibly, but having a limited quarterback limits what you can do. So, what’s the excuse for 2021?
But what about the piss poor weapons and offensive line play! Look, a lot was gone around him. The pass blocking fell off, though he didn’t help himself by holding onto the ball for forever. He didn’t have Wan’Dale Robinson, though are we really going to sit here and say he is the ultimate wide receiver anyways? So, it is somewhat understandable his stats would sort of dip, but even when he had the weapons and OL, his stats weren’t great in 2021. So, all you’re telling me is that he can’t elevate. Your franchise quarterback nowadays needs to elevate. He can’t.
2021 had the much beloved Liam Cohen as OC. Levis still didn’t do anything. Levis had better weapons and offensive line. Levis still didn’t do anything. Levis was completely healthy. Guess what? Levis still didn’t do anything.
Let’s talk about 2021. Levis has never thrown for over 2,900 yards in a season. He also has always had double digit interception in his two full seasons as a starter. So, let’s look at 2021 and 2022 from metrics:
2021 (The Best Levis): 66% cmp | 7.7 AY/A
2022 (The It’s Not Levis’s Fault): 65.4% cmp | 8.3 AY/A
This is where you could enter in TheyreTheSamePicture.gif. So, like I said I didn’t see a lot of Levis tape in 2021, so I went back and watched, and I can’t tell a difference between 2021 Georgia and 2022 Georgia.
Everyone talks about how great he was in the 2021 Georgia film, and that is the one to watch to see the NFL QB people think he is. It’s not terrible, but it isn’t far from a “the guy” kind of statement game you’re looking for. 4.5 yards per attempt doesn’t do it for me. Sorry. If you say that’s against one of the best SEC defenses as an excuse…what do you think NFL defenses are?
When Levis played against the University of Tennessee he put up a stat line that would make Malik Willis look like Dan Marino. 16 for 27, 95 yards, 0 TDs, 3 INTs. This was against one of the worst NCAA pass defenses. Terrible.
Here are Levis’s passing stats for 2021 and 2022 broken down by SEC opponents and non-SEC opponents:
I would say in most cases that an SEC QBs stats will always look better against non-SEC teams, but the difference is that most SEC QBs still look good to great versus their SEC opponents. Levis was just flat out terrible, and this is a franchise guy in the NFL? Yeah, no thanks.
Here were the Non-SEC Opponents:
Lousianna-Monroe
Chattanooga
New Mexico State
Louisville x 2
Iowa
Miami (OH)
Youngstown State
Northern Illinois
He averaged almost an interception a game against schools like “Our Lady of the Poor” (h/t: Robert Greenlaw). I wanted a quarterback that I felt resembled Levis enough to make a comparison to show what I mean, the guy I found was KJ Jefferson.
Jefferson, like Levis, played in 24 games over the last two seasons and he too never cracked 3,000 yards passing. The biggest difference though is that he took care of the ball and scored slightly more passing touchdowns.
As you can see Jefferson stepped up big time versus SEC competition. Only throwing two interceptions his entire career against the SEC defenses is a big accomplishment. Jefferson is about to turn 22, so he is also doing this at a younger age than Levis was.
That is where this one last piece of data I want to share comes in: Levis’s age. When Levis is drafted he will be 23 years-old, but he will end up being 24 before the season starts. Why is this important? Historical data shows that your age severely limits your ceiling and/or your ability to grow as a player.
Levis’s breakout age was 22.2 years old which is in the 13th percentile for quarterbacks. Not only is that a bad sign, but there have been a lot of quarterbacks drafted from 2000-2018 that are 23 years or older. The reason I am using that year range is to allow for the 4-5 year career arc to play out. Here’s what the data shows:
153 quarterbacks
Average 1.76 seasons as the primary starter
1 All-Pro (Tom Brady, Age 23)
19 Pro Bowlers (12.42%)
17.01 career approximate value
Average Round Drafted: 4th Round
Younger quarterbacks just perform better. Don’t just take my word for it, FiveThirtyEight.com put out an article a few years ago looking at quarterbacks drafted from 2000-2013. This was their findings:
While the youngest group of players age 20-21 performs only slightly better on average (43.8 average approximate career value) than the second-youngest at age 22 (42.9), the gap quickly widens. The 146 first-round picks who would have been 23 years old on Sept. 1 of their draft year had a 39.5 CarAV. And the 27 who were age 24 and over averaged just 33.6. (The oldest was 28-year-old quarterback Brandon Weeden, picked by the perennially hapless Cleveland Browns.) - FiveThirtyEight.com
Levis will be 24 when September 1st comes around and so his value will be even lower than when he was drafted according to FiveThirtyEight.com. This is all just a recipe for disaster. Now that we got the facts, data, and scouting report out of the way. Let’s dive into the rumors.
We all saw how on Friday that the Titans sent out their head coach, offensive coordinator, and general manager to the Kentucky Pro Day. You couldn’t not see it. Mike Herndon started soiling his pants because they sent “the calvary”, his words not mine.
Did we not expect this? Did we all assume that a team who is in the quarterback purgatory wouldn’t go to a Pro Day that was just over 3 hours away? This is the least shocking or sounding the alarm bells news ever.
Oh no! They even met with him! Shocking. It’s called doing due diligence. Let’s be honest, Vrabel is not going to like Levis. I know there are reports his interviews are going extremely well, but hey there were reports like that for Willis too. Those are just agents feeding silly bits of information.
Levis puts mayo in his coffee and eats bananas while the peel is still on them. I can guarantee you that he is going to come across as unlikable to Vrabel. Let’s not forget those Pro Day throws on air! Woweeee! Now, let’s circle back to what I talked about what I saw on tape. The piss missiles. No touch or feel. This matters to the NFL at large and on that same day you’re being spoon fed only the positive things, here’s the full story:
The internet and sports media world was buzzing about the deep passes delivered by Will Levis today, and he was able to spin the ball with ease. But that tells just a small part of the story.
Once again, scouts came away unimpressed with the shorter throws delivered by Levis and his inability to put touch on passes. All too often, the big-armed quarterback was trying to throw the ball through a brick wall rather than deliver a catchable pass in the short-to-intermediate field.
The general consensus was he was throwing darts when he should be putting touch on passes or air under the ball. Even in warm-ups, scouts noted Levis was trying to throw the ball through pass catchers. - Tony Pauline
One of my favorite “insiders” to follow around this time is Tony Pauline over at ProFootballNetwork.com. Like most insiders he doesn’t have a perfect hit rate when it comes to the rumors and insider information he provides, but I feel during this time he is probably the closest thing out there to a sure thing.
He isn’t out here to do agent lip service, and it shows in what he shares and how he shares it. As evident above. You don’t hear the big channels talking about this, but it’s clear as day teams needed to see a touch and feel he hasn’t show on tape or through the pre-draft process.
Tape don’t lie. You can ignore the tape all you want, or solely focus on those very few and far between big time throws, but at the end of the day Levis has major flaws. Maybe you are team “We can fix him!”, but those guys being “fixed” in the past are outliers. The only tru fix was Josh Allen, and you need a Brian Daboll and Stefon Diggs inside the building to get that level of jump.
Titans don’t have that. Levis is not the type of quarterback Vrabel and Carthon have preached that they are looking for, specifically Vrabel. Vrabel is on record he wants a quarterback who can run an efficient passing game. A QB that can make all the throws and have a high NFL passer rating, while limiting turnovers and mistakes. That is not Levis.
Levis cannot make all the throws needed on Sundays. He doesn’t protect the football either. His accuracy issues lead to interceptions. Double digits in 2021 and 2022. He also has fumbling issues. This is not the guy for this offense.
Maybe you’re on team “He can sit and learn!”, good in theory, but you already have that guy on the roster. You already have the quarterback with a cannon arm, no touch or feel, and footwork issues. The biggest difference is that Malik Willis only cost you a third-round pick.
Conclusion
In a Two-tone Blue Nutshell: Will Levis is not going to be a Tennessee Titan. He doesn’t fit what they want in a quarterback, and thy have way too many other needs to draft another project quarterback that data shows won’t amount to anything.
He does make a handful of “Good God Almighty” throws, and those show up on tape, but you cannot rely on any kind of consistency or high frequency with them anywhere on tape.
I have told people my bold prediction is that Levis falls out of the first round. It’s bold, but I just have this feeling based on how we saw the quarterback group fall last year, that he is going to fall quite a bit in this draft. Maybe my prediction won’t come true, and he only falls into the 20’s, but I am going to be much more surprised if he goes top-10 than if he doesn’t.
This is a top-heavy quarterback draft. It’s Young and Stroud and the rest, but a team wasting a first round pick on Levis, while there is a better quarterback class looming next year is crazy to me.
Don’t forget that if you’re not a paid subscriber, that you won’t have access coming up to the articles I put out Monday-Friday! So, click below to get started today!
You can also share Stacking The Inbox to anyone you may think will enjoy this comment! sharing is caring!