Will the Tennessee Titans play Malik Willis and Will Levis on Sunday?
By Will Lomas
The Tennessee Titans have had a full bye week to figure out what the plan is at quarterback while Ryan Tannehill is hurt, and they...didn't.
I say that they didn't figure out a plan, but it might be better to say that they came up with a plan that is infamous for not working. According to Mike Vrabel, the Tennessee Titans are planning on playing both Malik Willis and Will Levis on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.
Not only did he say that was the plan, but he reiterated that both guys are expected to play, not just practice like they were going to play.
In a weird way, this almost makes sense on paper but it doesn't make sense when you look at the value of the players.
When they were in college, Malik Willis was a mobile quarterback with some designed runs, but it was Will Levis who was actually used as a wildcat quarterback during his time at Penn State.
In theory, you could put a gameplan together where Malik Willis is the normal quarterback and Will Levis fills a Taysom Hill sort of role as a quarterback that will almost certainly run the ball, but who is actually a real quarterback who could throw it if he wanted to.
Why this is a bad idea for the Tennessee Titans
If the Tennessee Titans needed to win one game to make the playoffs before Ryan Tannehill came back, then I could squint and make that move make sense. Having said that, the Tennessee Titans are 2-4 with almost no chance of making the playoffs even if all of the other AFC South teams collapse.
This is a perfect chance for the Tennessee Titans to evaluate what they have in Will Levis and get a jump start on designing a playbook around him for the future. Instead, the plan is either to treat this like a preseason game and have Malik Willis and Will Levis swap each series, or they are going to use him like Taysom Hill.
This is such a strange decision that I can't comprehend the benefits of, but like a lot of the Mike Vrabel decisions over the last 12 months, this is one where Tennessee Titans fans are going to have to wait and see and trust that he is smarter than everyone else.