Why Will Levis could be the next Malik Willis
Why Will Levis could be the next Malik Willis
Seaside Bonus: Will Levis vs Georgia analysis (2021)
When I was monitoring the 2022 draft eligible quarterbacks all of last season, I kept hoping for someone who would step up and demand that some NFL team would make him a first round pick in the ensuing draft. We had long known that the 2022 class had “no Trevor Lawrence” and that at best, the draft would get a Zach Wilson or Joe Burrow who emerged from a mediocre college career into a legitimate top-5 prospect, but only one prospect came close to that and to a much smaller degree.
Even as much as I believe in Grayson McCall, I’ve been well aware of how exclusive his fan club has been. Not only am I aware of it, I get to dabble in the art of deadly sins by being proud of his rise to prominence despite me personally taking no part in his success.
The only quarterback who came close to the “Burrow leap” was Kenny Pickett and he was the only one who declared for the draft who I felt would be a first round pick. After surviving months of talk from people that Malik Willis and Desmond Ridder would be first round picks, my suspicions were proven correct when they both landed in the middle of round three.
Now take this into consideration: In a QB class begging for a hero, nobody in the world was like, “Hey, why isn’t Will Levis here?”
Despite being eligible for both the 2021 and 2022 NFL Drafts, having spent three years at Penn State as a backup to Sean Clifford (Clifford was recently ranked as a 9th tier college quarterback by ESPN’s David Hale—9th tier, not 9th overall) and one year as the starter at Kentucky, the soon-to-be 23-year-old Levis opted not to test his luck in the worst QB class in a decade.
Had he gone to the NFL Scouting Combine this year, the 6’3, 220 lbs Levis may have “won the weekend” among his peers, none of whom seemed to possess his blend of size, athleticism, and arm strength. Everything good you will hear about Levis has to do with his potential, his mystical ceiling, and the premise that as long as he winds up with good NFL coaching that he could turn into the next Josh Allen.
And yet Levis chose to go back to Kentucky for a fifth year of college football rather than start the process of getting coached up by the pros and to start integrating into an NFL offense that would be tailored to his best attributes. Why would Levis delay his entry into the league and wait until he’s 24 to become a professional football player if he has the ceiling of Allen? There’s only one answer that makes sense to me:
Will Levis wasn’t getting any indication from the NFL that he was going to be an early draft pick this year.
If Levis wasn’t going to be a first round pick in the weakest quarterback class in ten years, if he wasn’t a better prospect than third rounders Willis and Ridder, then what exactly are people expecting to happen between now and next April that’s going to make him a top-three draft pick in 2023?
Hoping for someone to give me hope last season, Levis at one point began to flirt with my top-10 rankings. But every time he seemingly took a step forward, he would take at least one step back. Then when I’d go to watch Kentucky’s offense to see why he’d have good games on paper (14/17, 3 TD, 2 rush TD vs LSU or 31/49, 3 TD, 2 rush TD vs Tennessee), I’d ultimately come away kind of … bored.
How could that be?
Because Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Coen, once an offensive assistant for Sean McVay and now the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator, was smartly doing everything in his power to mitigate Levis’s weaknesses (inaccuracy, decision making, turnovers) and to highlight his strengths (arm strength, scrambling). And even despite those best efforts, Levis had 13 interceptions in 13 games, ranked 61st in adjusted yards per attempt, and 46th in passing efficiency. His rushing abilities fell much closer to being a guy able to take a pounding than an explosive open field runner.
Former Seahawks undrafted free agent signing Levi Lewis (236/391, 60.4%, 8 AY/A, 20 TD, 4 INT, 100 carries for 343 yards, 5 TD) may have even had a better season, statistically speaking, then Will Levis (233/353, 66%, 7.7 AY/A, 24 TD, 13 INT, 107 carries for 376 yards, 9 TD).
This wouldn’t be noteworthy if Levis was also expected to go undrafted or as a day three pick. Or even as a day two pick.
It is only noteworthy because Levis, according to a growing number of people, is being touted as one of the best all-around prospects in the 2023 NFL Draft class and a desired selection of the Seattle Seahawks.
The hype, which did not exist at all during the 2021 college season (and if it had, there at least would have been national coverage about his decision to return to Kentucky) feels all too similar to the left field claims that Malik Willis would be a top-three pick.
That’s the best comp I can come up with right now for Levis and my expectations for his draft value are practically the same: A mid-to-late day two pick. And because Levis is still a year removed from the draft, he might fall off the radar completely.
“Why don’t you Levis alone?”
It is unfortunate that articles and analysis like this one can either be twisted into “the writer is a hater” or be construed as being overly negative. In order to be fair to both Levis and readers, I have to give my honest and unbiased opinion about his play and his future. So like with Willis, if I analyze his resume and say, “I see him as a third round pick” then relatively speaking to what NFL Twitter is tweeting, people construe this as “being negative.”
In Willis’s case, it turned out to be 100-percent accurate. I feel validated in my analysis, but I root for Willis to play like a guy who deserved to go first overall. My part in this is over, I only analyze players as draft prospects, I’m not attempting to predict their futures.
Now, if you’re talking to someone who sees Will Levis as a seventh round pick, then calling him a potential third round pick would mean I’d be hyping him up.
To me, Levis could be in the same tier as Devin Leary, K.J. Jefferson, and Malik Cunningham at this point because any of them needs a phenomenal 2022 season to get into the first round. And if you don’t know those names, then I think that truly highlights where Levis actually is in his draft stock process and you might only know his name because he picked up steam in the Seahawks community after it was confirmed that Seattle didn’t draft a quarterback this year. Maybe even just from one writer, who knows.
Why Levis instead of Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud? Because I don’t think Seahawks fans are ready to concede the Seahawks as being in position to pick that early, even though I also don’t think it’s fair to judge who the truly elite prospects will be in a year. But to be clear, Young and Stroud really need to fall down to almost an unprecedented degree to not be top-10 picks, while Tyler Van Dyke is easily the third-best quarterback prospect in the class as of today.
Levis and McCall both need to climb up. I just happen to believe that Levis needs to do a lot more climbing. That shouldn’t be viewed as a pessimistic angle. It is the realistic one. Levis is easy to sell Levis to a fanbase if you only look at a :90 second highlight reel, same as it was for people who only scouted Willis through clips on Twitter, but the resume still needs Levis to show the most important trait of all:
Consistently play good football.
Either you think this is false (but I don’t see how anyone could prove otherwise) or you think that I’m overrating that piece of the puzzle.
This isn’t negativity, this is as straightforward as analytics: A first round quarterback has to have a great resume and when I add up every checkbox, Levis still needs prove a lot as a passer next season and he has to prove more than the average quarterback because he will be a 24-year-old rookie if he makes it to the NFL.
It’s not like the McCalls were my next door neighbors growing up. I have absolutely no stake in his success, I wasn’t born into this world with a gene that forces me to prefer Grayson McCall to other quarterbacks. I look for clues as to who might be bubbling up, I watch them play football, I read about them, I look for signs of leadership and competitiveness and a love of the game, I check the stats, and so on—McCall is “wow” to me in all the categories.
Russell Wilson had a fantastic resume, except for one thing. Sometimes the NFL really screws up their analysis of a draft resume. And they blow more decisions on quarterbacks in the first round than they do in the other six rounds combined.
My analysis of a prospect’s draft resume is never positive or negative. It is only intended to be fair.
And to be fair, I’ve highlighted a lot of clips of Grayson McCall and none of Will Levis. Maybe I’ve completely screwed up my analysis of his film, so why don’t we watch some together? I’ll be highlighting some moments from Levis last season against Georgia, a defense widely considered the best in college football.
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