With neither Michael Pratt nor Sean Clifford showing enough to earn the backup job, the Packers went out and traded a 2025 seventh-round pick for Malik Willis. Willis, of course, was a third-round pick for the Titans in the 2022 draft after playing the last two years of college basketball at Liberty.
In this 2024 preseason, Willis was 22/30 (73.3%) for 236 yards (7.9 YPA), 2 TDs, and 1 INT. If you pay attention to PFF grades, Willis had a 76.0 passing grade throughout the preseason (Pratt was at 56.8 and Clifford was at 55.0).
I had watched Willis a bit coming out of the draft and was excited about his throwing arm (obviously), but he was pretty tough on everything else, so he wasn’t that great for me as a junior. I haven’t really watched him over the last two years, so I was curious to dig into it and see where he was at.
The good
The arm plays. The arm definitely plays. Incredible arm strength from all platforms, with accuracy that was better than I expected. This arm strength allows him to play outside of structure when the game breaks down.
When he progresses, even in fast play, it can look good. He reads the drops, hits the back foot and shoots in time.
On this replay, he sees the safeties post-snap rotation to a single-high situation, meaning he has one-on-one vertical from the right slot, so he makes the throw and hits the receiver with a really nice throw.
He can throw the ball creatively, which benefits him in pressure situations. On this PA boot rep, he has a defender breathing down his neck, but he gets through it just enough to create a throwing lane and make a really nice throw to his receiver.
The bad
One of the main problems is that the game crashes Because by Willis sometimes. It’s hard to take credit for making a game out of structure when the failure of the structured game is your own fault.
On 5-7 step-drop concepts, he just wasn’t in the rhythm of the offense. He had a habit of getting to his spot too quickly. His back foot hits, he’s ready to throw, only to find that none of the receivers are ready for the ball. It’s one thing if this was a one-time occurrence or you could chalk it up to “maybe his receivers weren’t running the right routes,” but it happened multiple times in limited snaps.
In this stark example, it’s 3rd & 10 and the Titans are running full speed toward the posts. Willis reaches the peak of his drop before anyone is ready to break about 5 yards. The rhythm is just broken at this point. Even if he tried to make a throw out of the break, he would be doing so from a less than ideal platform.
There’s also an issue with his footwork. It’s not necessarily bad, it’s just very inconsistent. Notice his choppy feet here. That’s not bad in and of itself – Peyton Manning famously had choppy feet in the pocket – but there doesn’t seem to be a purpose here. He’s not able to throw on any of the routes. On top of that, this isn’t consistent with him. If this was just his footwork in the pocket, that would be one thing, but it’s not. It looks like a footwork drill that’s only present on that one rep.
The inconsistent feet don’t stop there. They have examples of the most sloppy footwork you’ve ever seen.
Again, I don’t know if these things are condemnatory in and of themselves – every quarterback has his own style and way of playing that he’s comfortable with – but all of this paints a picture of a quarterback with no consistent footwork and no real plan for every play.
Finally, there are problems with reading. Let’s go through some of them.
On this play, the Titans have a vertical route on the left side and follow in-cutters from the right. The vertical is a red flag: It’s not really part of the progression, but it’s an opportunity if Willis likes the matchup. Basically, it’s either not part of the progression or the only option.
The Seahawks show a split safety look before the snap, which would rule out the vertical route since the safety would be covering that route. Still, you never know what the defense will look like after the snap, so Willis could certainly take a look there after the snap to see if the coverage has changed.
After the snap, the coverage has not changed. However, instead of immediately moving away from it and implementing the follow concept to the right, Willis stays with it until the end of his drop as if he were going to throw. He sees the safety, stops his feet completely, and then tries to implement the follow concept.
But the timing doesn’t work that way. By the time he gets back to the middle of the field, it’s too late to execute that concept. He does find the checkdown late in the replay, but he could have made a nice throw to the middle of the field if he had gotten off vertical during the dropback.
We’ll finish with this one, which also shows a problem with the read. He has a slant/vert combo on the right and a follow concept on the left. The read would be the slant as #1 on a 3-step drop, but if that’s not possible, then work the follow concept in the middle and switch to a 5-step drop.
As Willis drops back, he looks at the slant and sees that the linebacker is turned in the direction the slant is going. At this point, Willis should transition to the 5-step drop and use the follow concept, knowing that this LB will not be part of that coverage. Instead, he throws the slant and puts his man in the game.
I don’t know if any of those points are killers on their own – all quarterbacks have bad reputations, after all – but seeing all of that over the course of 30 attempts is pretty alarming. It paints a picture of a guy who has talent but just isn’t consistent with his reads, footwork, or progressions. It would be cool if he could do that, but right now he just seems like a bunch of blanks without much polish.
Albums listened to: Cloud Cult – Alchemy Bach; Mitski – Bury me at Makeout Creek; Chad Lawson – Where we are; Oasis – Definitely maybe
