The Tennessee Titans have been sitting on Will Levis like a used car dealer waiting for a buyer, and the calendar is finally about to force their hand. The NFL roster cut deadline hits August 30, and that is the day every team has to decide who fits and who does not.
Levis has been on the trade block since late 2024. The Titans have not moved him because they kept holding out for a better offer, and the offers never came.
Now they are stuck in the exact spot smart front offices try to avoid. Every team knows Tennessee has to make a decision. Every team knows the leverage has flipped.
Levis is not without value, and that is what makes this whole thing more interesting than a simple roster casualty. The physical tools are legitimate.
He has one of the biggest arms in the league. His release is quick. He can drop dimes 50 yards downfield without flinching. Those traits are the reason he was a second-round pick in the first place and the reason multiple teams thought he could be a starter.
The problem was always what was happening between the ears. Levis has struggled with reads, with pocket presence, with knowing when to check down and when to take a shot. He was benched in Tennessee for a reason.
But NFL teams love upside, especially when the price drops. Levis was probably fetching a second-round pick a year ago, and now he is probably fetching a late-round conditional. That price point makes him attractive to a bunch of teams looking for a QB2 or a spot starter.
Start with the Minnesota Vikings. J.J. McCarthy is entrenched as the starter, but their QB2 depth is thin, and Kevin O’Connell has a reputation for turning marginal quarterbacks into competent ones. Levis behind O’Connell for a year could actually rehabilitate his value.
The Cleveland Browns are another logical fit. They have been shuffling quarterbacks for years and the Deshaun Watson situation continues to hang over the roster. Adding Levis as a low-risk, high-reward flier is the kind of move Andrew Berry would consider.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the wild card. Aaron Rodgers is either back for another year or he is not, and either way, Pittsburgh’s long-term quarterback picture is unsettled. Bringing Levis in to compete would not solve their problems, but it would give them cheap optionality.
The Titans, meanwhile, need to accept reality. Holding out for a mid-round pick when the entire league knows you have to cut a player is not a negotiation strategy. It is wishful thinking.
The likely outcome is a swap for a 2027 seventh-round pick that becomes a sixth if Levis hits playing-time incentives. That is a light return for a quarterback who was drafted in the second round, but it is better than releasing him and getting nothing.
Some team is going to roll the dice. Quarterback development is expensive, and second-round picks with big arms do not fall out of the sky just because you want one.
By this time next week, Levis will probably be practicing somewhere new, and Tennessee will be closing the book on a failed pick. The tools were real. The player never came together.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
