The 国产外流网never fails to provide us with intriguing storylines with each week of the season.
In Week 15, one of them will live in Nashville, where former Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan now serves as the Titans coach and is preparing to face his old team. He knows who awaits him on the other sideline, and he wasn't about to hide his respect for one specific player: Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.
"If I had a vote, he'd be my MVP vote," Callahan said Wednesday of Burrow, .
Callahan would know. He worked as the Bengals OC from 2019 to 2023, overseeing the offense called by Zac Taylor from Burrow's arrival through 2023. That meant he also played a key part in directing an offense that welcomed Ja'Marr Chase in 2021, laying the foundation for a rather successful period for the Bengals that included a trip to Super Bowl LVI in the 2021 season.
Callahan recalls those days fondly. And he's well aware of the threat the pair present this weekend.
"I told them that at some point I'll look back and they'll both be in the Hall of Fame and I'll get to say that I was a part of their journey and man, they've only gotten better," Callahan said of Burrow and Chase, . "It's fun to watch and terrifying to get ready for."
Callahan's team is facing quite a challenge. Though they're not too different in overall record -- Tennessee enters at 3-10, while Cincinnati has had to scratch and claw its way to a 5-8 mark -- the Bengals will be expected to beat the Titans, especially after Tennessee only managed to score six points in a 10-6 loss to Jacksonville last week.
At this point, 2024 isn't about wins and losses for these Titans. It's about determining whether they have a future with quarterback Will Levis, who remains miles away from Burrow in the NFL's quarterbacking hierarchy.
While he didn't commit to Levis in 2025, Callahan said Wednesday the organization's evaluation of Levis will continue through the rest of the 2024 campaign and beyond.
"He's got a whole lot of things in front of him that he can still reach. There's a lot of things I think he's getting better at and plenty of things that I think he still continues to have to get better at. So that evaluation for him is ongoing," Callahan said, . "It's not anything that's going to -- the end of the season likely doesn't stop it. There's plenty of things that he's going to take from this experience that will make him better moving forward from here, too."
Up until last weekend, Levis had been building small amounts of positive momentum. He'd posted a 7-2 TD-INT ratio from Weeks 10-13, including two games with a passer rating over 120, and averaged 240 passing yards over that span. He accomplished this with minimal reliable protection, getting sacked 22 times in those four weeks.
In Week 14, however, he completed 59.4 percent of his passes for 168 yards and failed to find the end zone entirely.
Still, Callahan remains confident Levis will continue to improve at a rate that qualifies for more time with the Titans.
"So those things are exciting. That's the part of coaching that's fun, is that Will's very coachable and he's open to trying to improve everything about his game, and he attacks it with an intensity and an enthusiasm that I think he needs to get better, and those are the things that I'm excited about," Callahan said. "And hopefully, as the season ends at some point here and you get a chance to reflect and look back, there'll be more things that we can very specifically spell out that he has to improve on and then how to improve on them.
"It's really easy to critique and tell him you got to improve on these things. But the idea is to have a plan and a process to help improve those things that are specific."
Week 15 won't provide a final determination on Levis, but it will offer Callahan a live comparison between what an 国产外流网team should seek in a quarterback (Burrow) and a signal-caller that isn't yet there (Levis). He'll hope the final result finishes in his favor, too.
