Will Levis, You Have To Stop Cooking

More often than not, an NFL coach's job security is tied to how his quarterback performs. This being the case, it's rare to see a coach speak publicly about his starting quarterback in anything but encouraging terms. The most incapable bozo in the league can go out there and throw three picks, and his coach will still say stuff like It's not one person who wins or loses a game, or We believe [incapable bozo] is still the right guy to lead this football team. This is because most coaches know that publicly undermining an already-bad quarterback will only make things worse for himself.

So it's meaningful when a head coach, just two weeks into his tenure, has this to say about a play made by his signal-caller:

Yeah, I was upset. It was dumb, it was the same exact thing he did last week, and he cost us points in the red zone. It is what it is. He's a grown-up, and he knows better. I was really irritated that he cost us three points in a game where we probably needed it.

That's Titans head coach Brian Callahan talking about his quarterback, Will Levis, following their team's 24-17 loss to the Jets. Levis, a second-year quarterback with 11 career starts under his belt, was bad-bordering-on-terrible on Sunday, finishing with 192 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. But what the heck did he do to get his coach so steaming mad? Well, have a look:

On the one hand, that's the kind of panic-stricken error you have to learn to occasionally accept from a young quarterback, and Callahan isn't really doing anyone any good by getting on Levis's case both on the field and during the postgame press conference. On the other hand, there's some important context here that explains Callahan's inability to conceal his rage, and that is the fact that this is the second week in a row that Levis has killed his team with a brutal mistake. You may recall that the Bears managed to beat the Titans in Week 1 without scoring a single offensive touchdown, all thanks to this play:

A head coach throwing so much scorn on his quarterback two weeks into the season is nobody's idea of good player management, but it's hard to watch those two plays, which represent two of the worst and most damaging turnovers I've ever seen in a football game, and not understand where Callahan's coming from. What else are you supposed to do but seethe when the most important player on the field won't stop flicking balls to the opposition?

For his own sake, Levis had better get a grip on things quickly. Callahan is in his first year, which means his immediate job security isn't actually all that bundled up with Levis's. The Titans were never supposed to be good this season, and Callahan is only starting Levis out of necessity. With the team now 0-2, the Titans' goal for the season may quickly shift into tanking for a better draft position, and Levis only needs a few more bad performances to lose his Quarterback Of The Future designation. Mason Rudolph isn't going to get better results, but he might at least lose in ways that don't send his coach into a rage.