Rookie quarterback Will Levis stole the show on a day usually reserved for linemen and linebackers Monday.
In the Titans first day in full pads Levis looked extremely sharp in 7 on 7 throwing three straight touchdown passes Justin Rigg, Reggie Roberson and Treshaun Harrison with three pin point passes that grabbed everyone’s attention.
“I mean it was good as a group we just all did our jobs and it’s an offensive drill, we expect that.” Levis said, “We want to complete every ball. It’s good to see the first day doing Red Zone stuff, that stuff popping and coming to life.”
The overwhelming opinion of those in attendance is this was Levis’s best work since joining the Titans. The former Kentucky star was known as a quarterback with big arm talent coming into the draft and that was on full display.
Head coach Mike Vrabel was pleased but of course, tried to keep things in perspective, “I thought there were some good balls. I thought there were some good decisions down in the red zone. I thought he delivered the ball with some accuracy, tried to push it down the field and work the concepts that we had going in today just in the red zone. So take it day-by-day. There’s going to be some good days, there’s going to be some bad days, learn from them and keep progressing.”
Levis has been running third team behind Ryan Tannehill and second year quarterback Malik Willis. Willis has looked much improved over the struggles he had as a rookie and it is starting to look like a real competition to be Tannehill’s backup.
“Yeah. I think it’s been great. I think it’s been great.” said Vrabel, “I think that they all push each other. You see them getting excited for each other and you’re allowed to do that and still compete and still want to try to win the competition. I think they both have done some really good things. There’s some plays that both of them would like to have back. One day isn’t going to make or break anything. But hopefully we can come back tomorrow without a script and put the ball down and see how they function and operate and move through the different situations that we gave them tomorrow and see how they lead their unit, whether it’s the second group or the third group. And they’ll both have opportunities with each of those different groups.”
While Levis was happy with the outcome of practice, he also understood it was just one day in the long process of learning to be an NFL quarterback, “The standard is the standard and you have to hold yourself to it. If you have success you have to see what you can do better to make it even easier the next time… OTA’s compared to now, I only feel like it gets better with repetition and it only can better with repetition so I’m grateful for the opportunity to get reps out here.”
With the reps he took Monday Levis raised the bar and expectations for the rest of Training Camp.