Do the Tennessee Titans have any plan for the future?

The Tennessee Titans had a game against the Dallas Cowboys with nothing on the line, and they decided to make a change at quarterback.

On the same day when Ryan Tannehill’s season officially ended, Mike Vrabel decided that getting Malik Willis reps wasn’t that important.

While Willis has been bad in his starts this season, that comes with the territory when you take a developmental quarterback. The assumption has always been that Willis was going to ride the bench this season and then compete in 2023 with his best chance to start being in 2024.

However, just a few games into his career it seems like Mike Vrabel might be done trying to figure out how to use the rookie quarterback.

You could argue that starting Josh(ua) Dobbs against the Dallas Cowboys gives them a better chance to win, and it also gives them an idea of which quarterback should start in the all-important Week 18 matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The problem is, what then? If Malik Willis gets the start in Week 18 now it will be after the Titans halfway admitted that they don’t believe in him as a starter. If Dobbs wins the starting job, does that mean that Dobbs was more comfortable and better than Malik Willis despite Willis spending more time in this offense and with these players?

It is a lose-lose for the future.

Who will be the Tennessee Titans’ starting quarterback in 2023?

The Tennessee Titans coaching staff should look different next year and the next OC should have input on who the next quarterback is. Having said that, no one should believe Mike Vrabel the next time he looks into a camera and says that he has a plan for the future, unless that future is Ryan Tannehill.

By not giving Willis this start, you are taking away critical reps for his development in a game where the outcome doesn’t matter. In my opinion, this is the coaching staff saying that they don’t think that Malik Willis is a fit.

If the coaches have given up on him, that is coming from the top-down, meaning that the person who is giving up on him isn’t Todd Downing, it is Vrabel. Since the Jon Robinson firing, everything coming out of the mouths of Tennessee Titans’ employees has been that Amy Adams Strunk thinks that this team doesn’t need a complete rebuild.

The vote of no confidence in Malik Willis and Strunk’s expectations for a win-now team, signal Ryan Tannehill as the starting QB in 2023 with a different rookie behind him. While I still believe that Malik Willis hasn’t even scratched the surface of his potential, when a head coach gives up on you it is almost impossible to get a fair shake again.