National Football League

Will Levis makes strong first impression on Titans: ‘He’s an intense guy’

Published May. 15, 2023 1:20 p.m. ET

Colton Dowell admitted he was scared to touch the TV remote in the hotel room.

Understand that Will Levis got there before him. The two were rooming together for Titans rookie minicamp. When Dowell arrived, the former Kentucky quarterback was already looking at his iPad, deep into the playbook.

The first night, the two and fellow rookie draft pick Josh Whyle went over it in the hotel, an impromptu study session. If Dowell and Whyle had questions, they asked Levis. They had back-and-forth banter.

"He's an intense guy," Dowell, a seventh-round receiver from Tennessee-Martin, told reporters Saturday. "He really wants to make the most out of this opportunity he's been given."

And the Titans are eager to see what he has.

His development has begun. Tennessee's potential quarterback of the future, Levis wrapped up rookie minicamp this weekend. OTAs are next. Then it will be mandatory minicamp in June. Training camp in July.

Outside the Titans' building, the big question is when Levis will be QB1. Veteran starter Ryan Tannehill, who turns 35 in July, is entering the last year of his contract.

Levis might not be the guy until 2024. If the season doesn't go as expected for the Titans, though, the second-round pick could take the reins at some point 2023, sooner rather than later. If he takes to the offense quickly, the former Kentucky star might even have a chance to be the starter entering the season.

Levis isn't thinking about it that way.

"I haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg of what's needed to know here being a quarterback," he explained Saturday. "I got to just keep improving every day, putting the past behind me and learning from my mistakes and just continuing to get better and be the best leader I can be and the best person for this team to help us win as many games as we can."

He has been working on his operation at the line of scrimmage, commanding the huddle. For the first time, he has had a mic in his helmet. Relaying a play call to his teammates in the huddle is new territory.

What has helped him is the experience of having to work with multiple offensive coordinators in college, between Penn State and Kentucky. What also has helped him is coming from a pro-style offense with the Wildcats. There are similarities in what he ran and what is asked of him in the Titans offense, between the track points, footwork, run game and play-action concepts.

There's a caveat, though.

"I mean, you can fall into the traps of, ‘Oh, this is what we called at Kentucky, so that's what I want to call it in my mind.' You have to erase that," Levis said. "You have to erase everything in the past and you have to put it in the language of how we call it.

"So that's been the biggest thing for me. Some of the formations that I called one thing and I might think it's one thing and then I have to be like, ‘No. It's not that. It's not what it was. This is what it is.' Just keep working on that, keep having everything and keep mastering the offense."

There's a lot of noise around Levis.

Some of it is the usual hype around highly drafted quarterbacks. It's also specific to Levis, from the NFL observers who don't buy that he can be a franchise quarterback. That his inconsistent play and the turnovers at Kentucky (23 interceptions in two years) were too much of a turn-off.

"I wouldn't say I block it out," Levis said of the noise. "You can't not see it, the stuff people say. But you have to take it for what it is: meaningless. You focus on what matters, you focus on what you can control and you kind of just say screw it to everything else."

Most exciting for Levis?

Being in an environment that's all football.

"No one has an excuse to not know what's going on, to not know their assignment," he said. "They don't have all these other social life things they have to worry about, especially right now during a rookie minicamp environment. These are the best players of the best. That's why they're here. I think we all thrive in an environment like that."

Ben Arthur is the AFC South reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.

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