Music City Miracles
Brian Callahan isn’t considering it, but should he be?
Tennessee Titans starting quarterback Will Levis committed another cardinal sin in Sunday’s embarrassing 30-14 blowout defeat to Malik Willis and the Green Bay Packers. Levis committed three total turnovers, including a terrible pick-six that he telegraphed by staring his target down. He’s now leading the league in turnovers (8) and pick-sixes (2) through three contests.
There were fleeting flashes of starting-caliber quarterback play by Levis. But the former Kentucky standout also continues to make game-altering mistakes that the Titans can’t overcome. Levis was sacked on a league-high eight occasions behind an awful offensive line, but roughly three of those sacks were attributed to the quarterback.
Head coach Brian Callahan isn’t considering benching Levis at this moment.
“This is frustrating and unfortunate, and not what I thought we were capable of to start the season,” Callahan said in response to the 0-3 start. “We can’t continue to have turnovers like that on offense. We handed seven more points to the other team. We’re not consistent on offense. We’re dead-last in the turnover margin by a long shot. We have to play better around him [Levis]. I’m not going to overreact to an interception. Those things happen. Guys throw picks. We’ve not yet played a complete game in any phase at any point. Nobody is coming to save us, so we have to figure it out.”
It’s understandable why Callahan isn’t currently considering benching Levis. He’s a 25-year-old sophomore quarterback coming off his 12th career start. Mason Rudolph isn’t the future, so perhaps Callahan will prefer to see Levis for a 17-game sample size no matter how bad it gets.
You wonder if Callahan will reconsider his stance if the Titans lose to another backup (or 3rd string) quarterback on Monday Night against the Miami Dolphins. The Titans would be 0-4 heading into their bye. Perhaps Callahan will wonder if Rudolph is capable of cutting out the mistakes and getting the offense executing on schedule (sorta like Ryan Tannehill did when he replaced Marcus Mariota in 2019).
