Cutting Through the Noise on the Personality of Will Levis

Stoney Keeley tries to get to the bottom of this narrative that Will Levis is a total weirdo

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For those of you who don’t know me and aren’t familiar with my work in the Twitterverse, I have a pretty dry and absurd sense of humor. I have said some dumb shit in my day, and I’ve never told people I was kidding. For example, growing up, I had a friend who told some kids on the school bus that his dad was The Undertaker (WWE Hall of Famer for those of you who aren’t wrestling fans). We convinced them he was telling the truth, and never admitted we were just joking.

Now, there are probably a few kids that went to Mount Juliet Junior High in 1999 who grew up thinking they knew The Undertaker’s son. Most of you are probably reading this,  wondering when I’m going to actually start writing about the Tennessee Titans, and thinking this is anything but funny. That’s fine - I’m not trying to make you laugh here. I’m illustrating a point that different people have different sensibilities, different senses of humor, and just generally see the world through different perspectives. 

I heard all of the same noise that you guys did surrounding Will Levis leading up to the draft. The coffee in the mayo…the banana with the peel on…I thought it was weird just as I’m sure you all did. But, and this is where that introductory paragraph comes into play here for context, when I heard that he basically just did all of this gross stuff as a joke, I actually laughed and thought, “now, wait a minute - that’s my kind of comedy!” It made me think that I misunderstood Levis the way those kids on that bus probably thought I was an idiot all those years ago.

The narrative took on a life of its own - Levis is a weirdo and he’s scaring the hoes. It went from “he’s a little quirky” to “he’s bombing interviews,” and I’ll admit that I keyed in on all of that stuff. It’s why I was so surprised to see the Titans eventually draft him. From what strangers on the internet say, Levis is a goofball, and Mike Vrabel does not seem like the type of coach who wants a goofball at the helm of his offense.

It made me feel like I must have missed something with Levis, but the truth is that none of us can really judge a kid’s personality when we’re not in the room with coaches and GMs throughout the interview process ourselves. It’s why I say the interviews leave a giant hole in the scouting process for those of us who are doing it from afar. We don’t have access to the interviews, so all we have to go on are the little nuggets that trickle out.