The Tennessee Titans concluded the 2023 preseason with their second straight victory, beating the New England Patriots by a score of 23-7.
It should be noted that New England didn’t play any of its notable starters while Tennessee played several of theirs. Nonetheless, this was a solid all-around performance by a Titans team that appears to be ready for the season.
We even got to see Ryan Tannehill for one drive in which he worked on his form when handing the ball off, and he displayed his ability to catch a singular shotgun snap.
All jokes aside, this was a solid day for Titans quarterback Malik Willis, who played all but the first series since Will Levis once again didn’t play due to his thigh injury.
Unless Levis has looked unbelievable at practice, it’s hard to envision Willis not being the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart when the Titans open the season on Sept. 10.
As we’ve done throughout the preseason, this article is going to provide a fair and unbiased opinion on how Tennessee’s second-year signal caller performed in the preseason finale.
There were obviously some good and bad things to take away from this performance. Let’s dive right into it.
The good
This wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but it was the type of performance that provided a ton of optimism surrounding Willis’ potential in the future.
He undoubtedly had some ugly turnovers which we’ll discuss later, but Willis is steadily showing signs of obvious improvement the more that he plays.
After starting the game completing just one of his first five passes for a measly 22 yards and one interception, the Titans’ young signal-caller ended the first half completing all eight of his second-quarter throws for 115 yards and one touchdown.
Even when Willis had his ugly moments, he simply moved on to the next play and bounced back every single time.
Following his second pick, Willis led a fantastic touchdown drive that ended with a beautiful touchdown pass that truly showed off his incredible physical tools.
Willis could’ve gotten rid of the ball a bit sooner, but that really is nitpicking what was an incredible play by the second-year quarterback.
Malik Willis to Kearis Jackosn for a 26-yd TD. Willis had him open early but waited on it. He still managed to get the ball to Jackson for the score, but it could have been an easier throw if he released it sooner. 7 pts though. pic.twitter.com/dO9Lc2xMUB
— TURRON DAVENPORT (@TDavenport_NFL) August 26, 2023
Something I’ve pointed out in my previous articles is how Willis has to get his body square to his target when he’s moving to his right instead of just chucking it across his body as hard as he can. Willis finally accomplished that here, and the results were exactly what you hoped for.
Just perfect execution from @malikwillis for the TD 🙌
📺: #NEvsTEN on @NFLNetwork
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/624TrfDUF6 pic.twitter.com/uSv4OXMKvG— NFL (@NFL) August 26, 2023
The former third-round pick also showed off the cerebral part of his game today, routinely keeping his eyes downfield, going through his progressions, and finding the right guy more often than not.
There was also a play where he recognized the Patriots had 12 defenders on the field and immediately got to the line and snapped the ball to get a free five yards.
This was arguably the best game the Liberty product has had in a Titans uniform. If you weren’t impressed with Willis today, chances are you probably entered the day with unrealistic expectations to begin with.
Willis is undoubtedly still a project; that’s why he occasionally has the ugly-looking play that leaves you scratching your head. But the larger sample size is slowly but surely starting to look much more impressive.
Coming from the college system he came from, Tennessee’s second-year quarterback was always expected to be a two- or three-year project before he ever had a realistic chance of becoming a starting quarterback.
Right now, he is perfectly on schedule to potentially do just that if he can develop enough to beat out Will Levis next year in what should be an open competition between the two quarterbacks selected on Day 2 of the draft in consecutive years.
In an ideal world, Willis nor Levis will see the field until 2024 at the earliest. With that said, the former Liberty star has at least given himself a puncher’s chance to snatch the job away from the guy who Tennessee undoubtedly intends to start in 2024 if everything goes according to plan.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t shock me one bit if Willis shows enough growth by next August to the point where he makes this a difficult decision to make.
Willis finished the day by completing an impressive 75 percent of his passes (15-of-20) for 211 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
The bad
As I stated earlier, Willis did have a few boneheaded moments in this game. As much as I just hyped him up in the previous section, there’s no denying that he has to do a better job of protecting the football if he’s ever going to become an NFL starter.
The Liberty legend has turned the ball over in every preseason game he’s played in, with several close calls on a handful of other plays as well.
His first interception on the day came on a bad throw that was behind Josh Whyle.
The ball once again hit Whyle’s hands, so you could argue that he should’ve made the play regardless, but Tennessee’s rookie tight end shouldn’t have been in that situation where he needs to contort his body to make a catch.
On the second interception, Tennessee’s young quarterback came back after an impressive second quarter and threw one of his worst passes of the preseason.
Joe Giles-Harris with the PICK!!#NEvsTEN | #ForeverNE
📺: @wbzsports pic.twitter.com/c27MWOyvlo
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) August 26, 2023
Willis tried to layer the ball over the dropping linebacker but he didn’t get nearly enough mustard on the pass, subsequently leading to an easy turnover for the Patriots’ defense.
The Titans quarterback also had another ball hit the floor on a near-fumble off a poor exchange with his running back. Fortunately, Tennessee recovered the ball, but Willis has to figure out a way to clean up these occasional ugly plays where the ball gets put in harm’s way.
If there is anything that’s truly going to hold him back, it’s backbreaking moments like those. Until he cleans up that aspect of his game, he will likely always be better suited for a backup role.
Outside of that, Willis really did play an awesome football game, so I don’t have much more to critique outside of maybe getting rid of the ball when plays aren’t developing as you’d hope instead of trying to make something happen out of nothing.
At the end of the day, all you wanted to see out of Willis this preseason was obvious signs of growth, and we certainly got that. The next step is doing whatever he can to continue developing from the sideline since this will be Tannehill’s team in 2023, barring injury.
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