My Two Cents: Titans' 'Year of Transition' Might As Well Start Now

NASHVILLE — This much we knew back in the spring when the Tennessee Titans were beginning to make plans for the 2023 NFL season. It was the final year of long and expensive contracts for quarterback Ryan Tannehill and running back Derrick Henry, and they run out in January,

The end was in sight.

It was going to be a year of transition for sure, especially with a new general manager (Ran Carthon) and a new offensive coordinator (Tim Kelly). There was also no chance that Tannehill would be back for 2024, and who knows about Henry. So 2023, this was it.

And now, that was that.

The Titans are 2-4 so far, and even though they've looked good in two home wins, they've been pretty horrible otherwise. Tannehill, who's 35 now, hasn't played very well behind a very sub-standard offensive line, and on Sunday he had to limp off the field with an ankle injury. He needed crutches to get to the Titans' plane for the ride home to Nashville.

We'll know more on Monday about the severity of the injury, and what comes next. The Titans are off this week and play the Atlanta Falcons at home on Sunday, Oct. 29.

And two days later, it's the NFL trade deadline. So as we sit here now, do we really think the Titans can make the playoffs? I'm thinking no, based on what we've seen so far. (I thought no before the season started, too.) The Jacksonville Jaguars are two games ahead of them now and have found their stride, winning three games in a row. Catching them seems like a longshot.

So if Tannehill isn't a part of the future and the present pretty much stinks, isn't it just time to move on and build for the future?

I think so.

It was Tannehill who gave the Titans the best chance to win to start the season, but in six games he's only thrown two touchdown passes and has six interceptions. He's passed for 1,128 yards, and his 188-yard average ranks No. 31 in football. That's awful.

The Titans have had 14 scoring drives away from Nissan Stadium, and 12 of them have ended in field goals. Tannehill just isn't getting it done, especially in the red zone.

Sure, the offensive line deserves blame and the receiving corps has had a few drops. DeAndre Hopkins was a big offseason addition, but Tannehill doesn't get him the ball enough. He's only had 27 for 376 yards in six games, and still hasn't scored a touchdown. He only had one catch in Sunday's 24-16 loss to the Ravens.

Much of that fan base wants to move on from Tannehill anyway. He's won a lot of games the past five years, but not enough, especially in the postseason.

He might not be good enough to help the Titans win, but there's also the hard truth that maybe no one can right now This is a very flawed team, one with very little talent across the board thanks to several years of horrible drafts. So just flipping the switch in the quarterback room is no guarantee for different results.

In fact, it might be worse.

The jury is definitely still out on whether Malik Willis, the second-year man out of Liberty, is really an NFL quarterback. He's athletic, without question, but he was brutally bad as a rookie, so much so that the Titans went out and scooped up Josh Dobbs off the street to play ahead of him when Tannehill was out.

Willis did nothing to impress. Everyone said all the right things in the offseason, that he came in and worked hard and understood the game better, but when draft night. rolled around, the Titans were all about trading up on Day 2 to bring in Will Levis, a projected first-round pick out of Kentucky who had fallen into the second round.

Now if the Titans had any faith in Willis, would they have done that? Of course not. And here's a very important point to remember. Carthon, who came from San Francisco in the offseason to take over running the Titans, did not draft Willis. It's very possible that Carthon has no faith in Willis being the face of this franchise going forward.

I'm not going to speak for him, but I doubt that he does. Especially after Sunday, when Willis came in during the fourth quarter and had no field presence at all, getting sacked four times.

Levis struggled a bit early in training camp, but definitely started to feel more and more comfortable each week. He had Willis split time in the Titans' preseason opener at Chicago, and it was a coin flip as to who performed better.

But the worst thing that could have happened to Levis — and also the future of the Titans — was that he came down with a thigh injury the day before playing the Vikings up in Minnesota. Willis got all the snaps the final two games, and those were reps that Levis desperately needed.

Once the regular season starts, it's hard for backups to get much work in. That's why Willis has remained No. 2 on the depth chart, with Levis No. 3.

Here's the big sticking point. Let's say Tannehill's ankle sprain keeps him out for a month. Is Malik Willis automatically the starter? I'm really not sure about that. Look, I have history with him, and I remember when he was at Auburn and struggled to master the game. When he didn't earn the starting job, he transferred to Liberty and put up big numbers against defenses with no — or very little — NFL talent.

Levis had an interesting career at Kentucky, and I was a big fan of what he accomplished as a junior, when he had a good offensive line that gave him time to throw and receivers who could make plays.

He wasn't nearly as effective as a senior when attrition depleted his offense, but there are a lot of NFL people who still really like him. I'm guessing that he's the Titans' starting quarterback on Opening Day in 2024.

So why not now? If the future is now, why not turn to Levis? I get it that playing time has to be earned in the NFL, and maybe Levis still needs to do that. But doesn't Willis have to do that, too? He's done nothing to impress anyone so far.

This is going to be an interesting week while we wait to hear about Tannehill. But let's move on. And now.

The next time the Titans are good — and that might be a few years — I like their chances with Levis at QB far more than I like them with Willis. They need better players at probably a dozen other spots before they are contenders.

So give me Levis and let's see what happenes. There's no game for 13 days, which is plenty of time to get him up and running. It's the only time we'll have that luxury.

The future is now. So let's just do it. It might be ugly, but isn't this already ugly?

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