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Are we sleeping on Will Levis?

Discussion in 'Houston Texans' started by Shark44, Dec 31, 2022.

  1. mario_v

    mario_v Member

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    His personality reminds me of Brock Osweiler. He looks and carries himself like a qb, he says all the right things that gms want to hear, but can’t play for **** in the nfl.[/QUOTE]
     
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  2. Shark44

    Shark44 71er
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    Omi, you say gamble, I say a good coach's dream challenge. Yes, he's 23 on draft night and 24 when season starts, but he didn't waste his time at PSU or Kentucky he earned a Bachelors and Masters, that shows me he's not lazy and his teachable right off the bat.

    Physically he has everything you're looking for in a franchise QB--height (6'3 7/8), weight (229 libs), hand size (10 5/8"), built like a LBer, elite arm, compact release, can throw at different angles, and willing and tough runner.

    There is a lot to like with his intangibles--smart (Degrees, learned multiple pro offensive systems, S2 Cognition score of 93%), tough (took multiple hits in pocket and running, and played through injuries), competitive (lead Kentucky to only their 3rd 10 win season in 130 years in 2021), and his leadership qualities and work ethic (HC/OC cited).

    Things he needs to improve can be worked on and minimized with adjustments to the scheme. Like Mills, he's been in three different systems in three years--not optimal for a young QB. The Shanahan System and stability with a Coaching staff starting with a 6-year contract are huge pros for a young QB's development.

    Personally, I'd take the pressure off of him in year 1 and let him sit, except for running a few packages to get him a feel for the speed of the game. If Mills or Keenum fall flat or get hurt, give him a chance, but ease him into the NFL like the Chiefs did with Mahomes (Smart HC/org).

    As I said in another thread, these kids get picked apart and we often see the lump of coal and not the diamond that can emerge when they overcome their issues.

    No one can be sure how Will Levis will develop in the NFL, just like we can't be sure how the other QB prospects will grow and develop. I'm not a gambler, but if I was a GM and had to bet my career on the 3 QBs after BY, Levis would be my choice.
     
  3. King713

    King713 Member

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    Will Levis going #2 sounds like a Nick Caserio pick. He gets to play the smartest guy in the room again only to look a doofus one year later.
     
  4. whag00

    whag00 Member

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    Lol...I'm sure Slowik and Johnson have been pulled into the conversations and agree Levis is qb2.

    That's if Levis is the choice...
     
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  5. Rockets FTW

    Rockets FTW Member

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    If they are going off upside, might as well try it now than when we are competing for a division title TBH.

    I'm starting to come around to it because I have trust that Ryans and Caserio are on the same page.

    If you don't like Caserio, pray for this because if it fails he's gone.
     
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  6. King713

    King713 Member

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    If it’s all about upside, Anthony Richardson is right there.
     
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  7. cmoak1982

    cmoak1982 Member
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    Levis has just as much upside and a higher floor
     
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  8. utgrad97

    utgrad97 Member

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    The only QB that is worth taking with a 1st round pick is Young. This team is to shitty to be wasting a Top 12 pick on any of the remaining QBs. We will be looking for another QB in 3-4 years.
     
  9. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member

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  10. Rudyc281

    Rudyc281 Member

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    What’s this say
     
  11. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member

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    It was about the Texans drafting Will Anderson at 2 and trading up to 3 for Will Anderson

    I don’t remember the actual trade and the tweet was deleted, obviously. Sorry.
     
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  12. cmoak1982

    cmoak1982 Member
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    I’d be down for two Will Andersons
     
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  13. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member

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    My bad lol a QB. Forgot which one they said.
     
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  14. Omihall23

    Omihall23 Member

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    My biggest concern is that one of his issues is hard to teach/may not be possible to teach and that’s pocket awareness. Watching him play, it is very true that he stands tall in the pocket and will deliver passes while taking hits. My issue is that it looks like the main reason he doesn’t react to pressure is because he simply doesn’t sense it. Tom Savage was a lot like that in the nfl. Getting blasted left and right because he simply doesn’t feel pressure. That’s not really something that can be taught.
     
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  15. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2023/story/_/id/36263708/will-levis-confident-quiet-nfl-draft-doubts

    …In the poke-and-prod marathon of the NFL draft process, the 6'4, 230-pound Levis is at mile 25. From 2021-2022, he was one of five Power 5 QBs with a 61% completion percentage and 22 passing touchdowns against the blitz. "If you could draw up an NFL quarterback," Mel Kiper Jr. once said, "he's that guy." But that guy has also been dogged by inconsistency, including accuracy concerns on touch throws and a surfeit of turnovers. Levis finished his college career with a 66 Total QBR, which would be the sixth lowest of any FBS QB to be selected in the top 10 in the past 15 drafts.

    So, depending on who you ask, he's either a franchise quarterback or a bust in waiting.

    …In four days, he's expected to step onto a Kansas City stage and pose with Roger Goodell as a billion-dollar franchise gambles on him. He'll likely get asked whether he still takes his coffee with mayonnaise or eats bananas unpeeled (he doesn't) or if he still watches "Scarface" before big games (he might).

    "People can say what they want, I'm sure I'll get some boos on the stage," Levis says. "But who cares what people think? Whoever picks me, I'm going to do whatever I can to be their franchise quarterback, to be a master of that offense, to prove that I'm the guy."

    …IF YOU ASK Levis' parents, Mike and Beth, chaos has always seemed to find their son. Including on the day he took his ACTs.

    Will was en route to the test at his school, Xavier High in Middletown, CT.

    "He's on Route 9, getting off the ramp, the car skids [and] ends up in the large grassy median maybe a quarter mile from school," Mike says from his sun-soaked kitchen on Connecticut's shoreline.

    Will was unharmed, but the car wasn't drivable. He dialed his parents, orchestrated towing to a gas station, then sprinted down the street.

    "He runs to school, walks in -- didn't mention to anyone what had just happened -- takes the ACTs and crushed it," Mike says. "The proctor said, 'I would've never guessed.' [Will] just assessed the situation: I'm OK, the car is going to be OK, the ACTs are the most important thing."

    From 2021 to 2022, he was one of six Power Five quarterbacks with 17 wins, 5,000-plus passing yards, 40 passing touchdowns and a 65% completion percentage -- and did so while getting a master's in finance. (He earned a bachelor's in finance, with a 3.97 GPA, at Penn State in three years.)

    "He doesn't sit still," says Beth, a Connecticut Girls' Soccer Coaches Association hall of famer and All-Ivy League forward on Yale's women's soccer team.

    "I checked in with him last night," Mike adds. "He says, 'Oh, I just finished a nice, little 13-hour day'" with Jordan Palmer, the quarterback kingmaker who fine-tuned Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence and who Levis spent eight weeks in California learning from. "Chalkboard, interview prep mechanics, physical training, speed training, eating. There's no casual with Will."

    He once threw his high school team into a contentious philosophical debate by writing Is water wet? on the locker room's whiteboard. The arguments lasted weeks.

    "[Will] can poke the bear or be the leader," says Andy Guyon, Levis' head coach his senior year.

    "I love psychological conundrums -- not yes or no answers, but answers that require thought-out reasoning, good conversation starters or icebreakers," Levis says. "Just ways to see how people's minds work. ...

    "My mind always needs to be stimulated in some way. I love riddles."

    He knew he wanted to try and solve them at the next level, picking apart the best defenses in college football. But he had to combat a stigma.

    "[Coaches] don't look at Connecticut as having good football," says Levis' youth quarterback coach, Travis Meyer.

    Only one Connecticut-born quarterback has more than 200 passing attempts in the NFL, according to Pro-Football Reference: Dan Orlovsky, now an analyst for ESPN.

    "We weren't really versed in the world of college recruiting," Mike says. "When we got online and saw [how early offers] were happening, we're like, 'Gee, we're a little behind.'"

    Levis attended camps, but scholarship offers didn't arrive until just before the start of his senior season: Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Florida State, Iowa, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard and, yes, Yale among others. His legs and a 4.69 40 endeared him to Penn State head coach James Franklin, and Levis made the leap.

    After his first season as a Nittany Lion, Levis' parents say, then-offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne and Franklin told Levis he had the talent to be a first-round pick, but he'd need two years as a starter minimum. He continued to back up Sean Clifford, making 102 throws in two seasons.

    "He knows how to adapt to wherever he is," Guyon says. "He understands: What's required of me in this situation?"

    For starters, he knew he had to leave.
     
  16. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    …When Levis arrived, his new teammates weren't sure if he was the quarterback they'd been told about or a linebacker.

    "We saw him throw the ball a few times during camp and we're like, 'Oh, he's got an absolute cannon attached to the right side of his body,'" said Eli Cox, Kentucky's starting center in 2022. "When the guys saw that, they're like, 'This dude could do whatever he wants in this offense. We can stretch the field 80 yards with one pass.'"

    He was voted a captain weeks after his arrival.

    "Some of the things he'd do in the weight room, goodness gracious," says wide receiver Dane Key, who caught six touchdowns from Levis in 2022. "I saw three plates on there one time -- he'd want to bench 275 ... on a game week. The strength coaches would be like, 'Will, you can't do that, we play Florida tomorrow.'"

    But bench 275 he did, then cannonballed a screening of "Scarface" that got him "jacked" before leading the Wildcats to a 26-16 victory over Florida.

    It was a seesaw game for Levis: He rushed for a one-yard touchdown after launching a 55-yard bomb to Key, but also only completed 54% of his passes and a blindside sack turned into an interception midway through the second quarter.

    Of Power 5 quarterbacks with fewer than 800 dropbacks since 2021, only Syracuse's Garrett Shrader and Tennessee's Hendon Hooker got sacked more often than Levis -- "We weren't experienced at the offensive line," Stoops says -- but Levis' 23 interceptions were tied for the fifth-most of any FBS QB over the last two seasons.

    "I threw too many turnovers," Levis says of his time at Kentucky. "You watch the tape, interceptions in the stat book. But I feel like I was an efficient passer, an efficient quarterback in most, if not all, games I played."

    Of the 18 quarterbacks drafted in the first round since 2018, only one had more than 3% of his college throws intercepted: Josh Allen. That changes with Levis (3.4%) or Richardson (3.8%).

    After his pro day, Levis talked about how his footwork -- what he attributed to his proclivity for turnovers -- was an area of great emphasis during his time with Palmer. "[We worked on] just moving efficiently, being able to come off a fake or off a movement, off-platform throw in a way to put yourself in a position to deliver the ball more consistently," he told NFL Network's David Carr. "A lot of times when I miss throws, I'm not doing that."

    Levis missed time or played through foot, finger and shoulder injuries in 2022.

    "Against Ole Miss, he got tackled and dislocated his finger," Cox remembers. "I was like, 'Do I need to get snaps to the other quarterback?'" Levis popped up, saw his non-throwing middle finger snapped in the opposite direction -- an image that immediately went viral -- and jogged off. He was furious, but not about the finger; he'd been flagged for intentional grounding in the endzone, a safety. Trainers popped the finger back into place, like they would two weeks later with a dislocated non-throwing shoulder, and Levis came back in. Kentucky lost 22-19.

    "Probably the worst play of my college career," Levis says. "I didn't get the ball out on third and long, took a safety, tore ligaments and got turf toe all in the same play. But I wasn't not going to go out on that next drive. ... As long as trainers say I'm good, I'm playing. You've got to adapt in those situations."

    Levis' stock dropped from a stellar 2021 (one of three Power 5 QBs with 350 rushing yards, 2,800 yards passing, a 66% completion percentage and 30+ total touchdowns) to a less-inspired 2022 (one of four Power 5 QBs sacked 30+ times with double-digit interceptions). But Levis only had four games in 2021 where his Passing Efficiency Rating was above 150; in 2022, he had seven.

    NFL insiders are still torn over which version is consistently him.

    "There was just so much pressure on him, everyone thinking he was going to be the No. 1 pick," says one NFL director of player personnel, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He had a turnover at offensive coordinator, a broken toe, hurt shoulder ... [so] he pressed at times. He's so smart, so gifted, so aware of things that he puts too much pressure on himself."

    …"Wherever I end up is where I end up," he said in January. "I'm going to treasure every single moment of this process."

    But before all that, he plays the game in Indy. He meets with Tampa Bay, Las Vegas, Houston and Minnesota, the last of whom gives him a football to hold while talking. ("I don't know if they just wanted to see my hand size," he jokes, though his 10 5/8ths-sized mitts are some of the largest in combine history for a quarterback.)

    He takes the podium and says his Pro style offense at Kentucky gives him a leg up on other quarterbacks. He talks about how he studied Joe Burrow's pocket elusiveness and how Josh Allen -- his most consistent pro comp apart from Matthew Stafford -- toes the line between tenacious and reckless. He makes jokes about mayo in coffee and ranks his favorite fruits: "Pineapple, clementine -- sleeper pick -- and I've gotta go apple."

    Levis is asked why he'll throw at the combine with so much on the line. His response -- "I've got a cannon and I want to show it off" -- and grin is memed into immortality.

    The consensus is that he'll be the third or fourth QB off the board.

    "The tools are all there now," an area scout, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says. "He needs to slow down. You could tell he was wound so tight [at Kentucky because] he didn't get a lot of help. But he can really throw. He needs a place that's stable that can let him learn for a bit before throwing him out there. The things he needs work on are fixable, but he needs the right situation."

    Levis is asked if he sees himself winning Super Bowls, and what he hopes to become. His eyes light up.

    "I want to be the greatest of all-time."

    This time, there's no grin in sight.
     
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  17. Shark44

    Shark44 71er
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    I believe that's a valid concern, but one that can be worked on as well. Some guys seem to have it naturally, that 6th sense, but others need more training and experience to develop their pocket presence. Here's a couple examples of the drills that can help train the QB to use their feet to find those safe areas within the pocket to keep focused downfield...

    Russell WIlson's routine...
    Spatial Awareness and Peripheral Vision Training... https://theqbdocs.com/perfecting-pocket-movement-and-footwork-for-quarterbacks/

    I believe Levis' work ethic, competitiveness and intelligence give him the opportunity to overcome his weaknesses. Whether the Texans feel this way is unknown at this time, but we'll find out in a few days.
     
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  18. zeeshan2

    zeeshan2 Member

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  19. red5rocket

    red5rocket Member

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    Sounds like the guy Caserio was talking about
     
  20. a time to chill

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    I knew Caserio should’ve been canned along with Lovie. Taking him with the #2 pick is insanity. Demeco should put his foot down. Caserio already picked a QB - Davis Mills.
     
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