Brian Callahan was the Bengals offensive coordinator when quarterback Will Levis entered the NFL and Joe Burrow’s presence in Cincinnati meant the team wasn’t in the market for a young player at the position.
Callahan still spent some time watching tape of Levis, however, and said he “was a little shocked” that Levis wound up slipping to the Titans in the second round because of how many things the quarterback does well. Callahan became Levis’s head coach earlier this year and said that he told the team Levis can be a “really, really good, top-end starting quarterback” during the interview process.
Levis’s draft slide makes it clear that’s not a universal feeling and Levis admits that serves as a motivational tool, although he said his bigger focus is on making sure the Titans are proven correct for believing in him.
“It definitely leaves a little bit of a chip on my shoulder and makes me want to go out there and work and keep showing people that teams might have made a mistake by not taking me,” Levis said, via Albert Breer of SI.com. “Hopefully I’m that guy that they talk about that did slip, and I can be that example for other kids that are in that same position in the green room like me. . . . I’m trying to prove this organization right.”
The bet on Levis will be a defining one for Callahan’s time in Tennessee, so everyone around the club will be pulling for it to be a winner.
