The Tennessee Titans finally won a football game for the first time since before Thanksgiving of last year after they beat the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday night, 24-16.
This win could mostly be attributed to a fantastic running game led by running backs Tyjae Spears and Julius Chestnut, and quarterback Malik Willis.
Sadly, when it came to their passing game, this wasn’t the all-around great performance we were hoping for.
Willis was forced to play the entire game after a mysterious lower-body injury sidelined rookie signal-caller Will Levis. Levis did dress up as the emergency backup, but Willis ended up taking almost every snap under center aside from a few gimmick plays that went to Mason Kinsey.
Therefore, unlike last week when this article broke down both Willis and Levis, this article is going to solely revolve around the performance of the former on a day in which he had the chance to run away with the backup quarterback job.
Sadly, that was hardly the case and instead Levis’ chances might have actually gotten better without even playing.
Hopefully, the Kentucky product can go next week because he has the chance to snatch this job with a solid performance, unless Willis bounces back in emphatic fashion.
Let’s dive right into the good and bad from Willis’ evening.
The good
On a day in which Willis definitely regressed from his overall performance last week, there were some positive takeaways in this game — and mostly when it came to the way he used his legs.
Willis’ best moments came on plays where the play call was either designed to get him on the move or when things broke down around him, ultimately forcing him to make a play himself.
Willis finished with a whopping 95 yards on 11 carries, averaging over 11 yards per run. The Liberty product also made a few nice plays using his arm whenever they were complemented by his athletic ability.
Early in the game, he had a nice bootleg to Chig Okonkwo for a 19-yard gain, which made up for an earlier drop by the tight end that undoubtedly would’ve boosted Willis’ numbers a bit had they connected cleanly.
Outside of that, he didn’t have many other notable moments with his arm. Aside from his big connection with his tight end, wide receiver Mason Kinsey and Racey McMath were the only other two pass-catchers who eclipsed more than five receiving yards on the evening.
I truly wish I could have a more positive review, but there really wasn’t much to be optimistic about when it came to this performance outside of the way Willis ran the ball.
The bad
Simply put, if Willis is going to win the backup job over Will Levis, he has to take advantage of these opportunities where he easily could’ve established himself as the undeniable No. 2 quarterback for 2023.
Instead, he followed up what was an encouraging performance last week with an inconsistent showing that mostly left everybody feeling discouraged this time around.
Willis didn’t look comfortable at all when it came to throwing the football. The second-year quarterback continues to sacrifice fundamentals to rely on his incredible athletic ability.
Early in the game, Willis once again failed to get his body squared up to the target while on the move, instead resorting to chucking it across his body as hard as he could, which inevitably led to an inaccurate pass.
This is the same issue he had at the end of last week’s game when he missed Kinsey in the back of the end zone on a potential game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Willis has to understand that every single person on that field is an athlete, and if he’s ever going to maximize his potential to the fullest, he must find a way to synchronize his mechanics with his athleticism instead of unnecessarily sacrificing one to boost the other.
Another example of Willis’ struggles on full display was his missed pass to a wide-open Nick Westbrook-Ikhine because he didn’t get enough juice on the throw and it ended up falling well short of the target.
You can’t even blame this one on poor mechanics, he just straight up missed NWI.
This play by Malik Willis in the first quarter was puzzling. #Titans pic.twitter.com/7AoHdWCsjz
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) August 20, 2023
For someone with his level of arm talent, that is simply unacceptable.
Last week, he overshot a wide-open Josh Whyle on a potential big play and it led to an interception. This week he did the opposite, and while it didn’t result in a turnover, it still left the same sour taste in our mouths.
It seems like he really struggles when it comes to making the correct decision as to when to change his proverbial golf clubs on certain throws.
There are times when he should sacrifice some velocity for accuracy, but instead he rips it as hard as he can, making passes harder to catch than they have to be. Other times, he does the opposite and the ball doesn’t get there.
To make matters worse, Willis continues to put the ball in harm’s way too often. He narrowly avoided another lost fumble after the ball was knocked out from behind. He then amplified the negative play by picking the ball up and trying to make something out of nothing.
In those situations, Willis must learn to accept that the play is over and he either has to fall on that ball and take his loss or pick it up and throw it away. Instead, he made a bad situation worse by losing even more yardage.
The worst moment of the day for the Titans’ quarterback came on an ugly interception that could’ve been avoided had he been adequately scanning the field.
Willis clearly predetermined where he was going with the ball, which is why he never noticed the linebacker dropping into the hole. This was an awesome play by the Vikings linebacker but things like this can be avoided by being more manipulative with his eyes and/or more cerebral with his decision-making.
Unfortunately, those are two things that Tennessee’s signal-caller has routinely struggled with doing on a consistent basis.
There were several examples of Willis having a receiver running open by NFL standards, yet he either missed them or ignored them altogether to stick with his primary read.
This was honestly the biggest disappointment of the day, because he showed so much growth in his processing ability when going through his reads last week but didn’t in preseason Week 2.
I’ll have to wait to get the all-22 angles to see exactly why that was the case, and maybe things were covered up more on the backend than I initially saw, but as of right now this wasn’t the emphatic statement by Willis I was hoping to see.
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