The Titans are off to an abysmal start to the 2024-25 season.
They sit at 1-5, joining only the Browns, Patriots, and Panthers in the singular win category.
This comes after an offseason of great offensive modernization and heightened trust of QB Will Levis.
The team went out and paid Calvin Ridley $50m in guaranteed money, made numerous additions to the offensive line, and made sacrifices on both side of the ball to win on a shorter time frame.
The team also embraced their aging receiving core, relying upon the 29 year old Ridley and 32 year old DeAndre Hopkins.
Update: October 23, 7am ET: the Titans have traded DeAndre Hopkins to the Chiefs for a 5th round pick that could become a 4th round pick based on certain incentives. Consider this article with that context--little of the argument changes, however.
Not to say they mortgaged their process in the future, but through a join effort and vision of Ran Carthon and the front office and the team's new coaching regime, they placed their bets on the current group.
After bringing in an offensive minded coach who took the job because he "[is] excited by Will Levis," things were, initially, looking upward.
The defense came in with little concern. After an impressive hire in Dennard Wilson and noteworthy acquisitions to an already formidable group, it was not a concern.
Tennessee's defense has given up just 272.2 yards per game thus far, good for the lowest total in the league.
Still, the team's dysfunctional offense has pulled them down and into an unrecoverable hole.
In the offseason, Brian Callahan suggested a high-speed, more vertical offense, and explosive offense.
Tennessee has operated the 2nd slowest offense in the league, using 31.9 of the 40 seconds allowed on the play clock on average. At 259.2, the Titans average the 2nd fewest total yards per game, sitting only ahead of the Browns. The team has averaged just 5.5 yards per pass attempt, another stat good for 2nd worst in the league. They have scored more than 17 points just once.
Brian Callahan has shown lapses as a first year head coach. But his conservative approach as a playcaller was a direct response to the team's inability to throw the football.
Will Levis' irrationality as a passer has made things overly challenging for the already struggling offensive staff. Callahan has cited the team's inability to pass the ball as the reasoning for their dimensionlessness and unimaginative offense.
The Titans league-low 71.2 passer rating after 7 weeks certainly supports this claim. So too does the truly impressive intangible mistakes of Will Levis which defined the team's narrow losses against Chicago and New York.
So, the team finds themself in a predicament.
The first half of the Bills game was an interesting case study. The team found success on the ground and surprisingly, through the air. Buffalo struggled offensively and thus trailed in time of possession considerably. While Tennessee's approach worked until midway through the 2nd quarter, their clear current ceiling was realized and the team proceeded to put up 0 net yards on first down and 0 points for the remainder of the game.
The team played a highly defensive and cautious brand of football. As Callahan suggested after Week 6's loss vs the Colts, the team is leaning on the ground game because it is the only reliable aspect of the offense. Still, the team took no (smart) risks and were stagnant after the 3rd drive of the game.
Considering the offensive season, this has been the process:
Hand the keys to Will Levis
Will Levis crumbles under pressure
The staff second-guesses their decision
The staff opts for conservative playcalling
The offense could not hold their own, as they have not all season, while the defense continues in their eliteness
Will Levis did, allegedly, miss Sunday's game due to a shoulder injury.
With an impressive bright spot in Tony Pollard and an elite defense, it did seem logical to give Mason Rudolph a hand at engineering the offense.
So is this present approach a valid way to proceed? If the team's plan for 2024-25 is to get their answer on Will Levis, it is undoubtedly misguided.
With an offseason so focused on offense, it makes sense to let things play out. It is true that you will never succeed in the NFL if you do not, on a weekly basis, put your best team on the field. But to salvage what remains, playing Will Levis and with limited restriction makes the most sense.
It could even, contrary to the opinion of fans, turn out favorably. Maybe Will Levis' multiple 200+ passing yard games last season were not entirely a fluke?
Will Levis, especially in the early weeks, showed the same glimpses that made the team and fans alike so excited for this 2024-25 campaign.
Heinous errors and unnecessary risk taking, though, derailed everything. While he largely cleaned these errors up against Indianapolis, the issue was, instead, that the offense was just poor and unimaginative. Rather than throwing the game away, the team was instead very horizontal, stagnant, did not get the ball to playmakers, and struggled in clutch situations.
While the setup is imperfect, Levis and Callahan can grow alongside eachother. Outside of Right Tackle, there are few glaring skill gaps on the offensive side of the ball. Still, due to a combination of factors, it has looked horrendous.
Mason Rudolph will not throw downfield and does not have the intangibles of Levis; but, won't throw away the game.
Sure, the team's offense is still one dimensional with Rudolph under center. But at least its disciplined.
Rudolph is not the long-term answer at QB, though. He was brought in for a backup as a reason. If the team wants to be competitive with bottom-half of the league teams and claw back to a 0.33 win percentage, Rudolph is perfect.
Assuming full health, they must turn toward Levis and, to the best of their ability, give him their unbroken trust.
It is highly unlikely that, despite the defensive success, the team will turn things around. With the Lions, Vikings, and Texans coming up in the next 5 weeks, things would need to look entirely different and soon.
As a result, the team needs to unlock Will Levis. Contrary to present popular opinion, Will Levis does indeed have talent. Whether he is disciplined or coachable is another discussion but regardless, he can make things happen on the football field. The team should let him throw downfield, let him make mistakes, and make things interesting for the Levis, the team, and the fans.
While Tennessee's season is on course for catastrophe, getting an answer on Will Levis would allow the team to pivot and retool instead of suffer the slow bleed of an uncertain Quarterback.
The team should, at the very least, see what they have in Will Levis. Whether he or Callahan are the answer is yet to be seen due to the abundant degree of growing pains. Regardless, the team must avoid limbo and find out the answer.