{"id":23889,"date":"2023-04-24T17:25:41","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T21:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=23889"},"modified":"2023-04-24T17:25:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T21:25:43","slug":"will-levis-should-not-be-a-first-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/will-levis-should-not-be-a-first-round-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Levis Should Not be a First Round Pick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY JONATHAN WILLIS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote that Anthony Richardson should not be the No. 1 overall pick<\/a> a few weeks ago, and I\u2019m back with another missive about a quarterback in the 2023 NFL Draft. Kentucky\u2019s Will Levis has no business being a first-round pick, and any team that pulls the trigger on Levis will regret that decision. What\u2019s even crazier is that BetOnline currently has Levis\u2019 pick position at 6.5, and he is expected by the oddsmakers<\/a> to go in the top six picks. That shows just how far the pendulum has swung when it comes to drafting quarterbacks, and some of them are now extremely overvalued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s clear that Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud both deserve to be top three picks, and it at least makes some sense that teams would roll the dice on Anthony Richardson given his potential (and what we saw from Florida\u2019s offense in the Spring Game<\/a> on Thursday). However, Will Levis is clearly a bridge too far as he does not have the polish or talent of either Young or Stroud, and he doesn\u2019t have the potential of Richardson either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levis was a backup to Sean Clifford for both of his seasons in Happy Valley with the Penn State Nittany Lions. He transferred to Kentucky in order to get playing time, and he had a fine first season in Lexington while leading the Wildcats to a 10-3 record. Levis completed 66% of his passes for 2,826 yards (8.0 YPA) with 24 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That led to some real buzz surrounding Levis entering the 2022 campaign, but he regressed a little as a passer. Levis completed 65.4% of his passes for 2,406 yards (8.5 YPA) with 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Additionally, he was not the same mobile threat as a senior as he was earlier in his career. Despite being 6\u20194 and 230 pounds, he was sacked 36 times and finished with negative rushing yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you dig into his stats, you find some worrying facts too. Levis was able to tear up subpar Midwest defenses like Northern Illinois, Miami (OH), and Youngstown State, as he threw for 983 yards with nine touchdowns and three interceptions against those teams. He was largely mediocre against Kentucky\u2019s other opponents though and was straight up bad against Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Georgia completely kept this passing attack under wraps until the fourth quarter too when Levis got to pad his numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, it\u2019s the Josh Allen effect that has scouts making googly eyes at Levis. Allen was very raw and had major problems as a passer in college, but he was able to put it together at the next level. He is the exception that proves the rule though, as we have seen with Daniel Jones and countless others. Teams are treating prospects of this type as a much surer bet than they actually are even when you consider the advantage of having a quarterback on a rookie contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levis has trouble progressing through reads, and he doesn\u2019t see all of the field, and those are major problems for an NFL quarterback. James Franklin is considered one of the best offensive minds in college football, yet Franklin opted to roll with Clifford over Levis, and that should say quite a bit regarding Levis\u2019 potential. Levis turned a lot of heads during Kentucky\u2019s Pro Day with his physique, but it\u2019s far more important to be able to consistently move to your second and third read than it is to put up 225 pounds as a quarterback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JONATHAN WILLIS I wrote that Anthony Richardson should not be the No. 1 overall pick a few weeks ago,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":23886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[146,159],"class_list":["post-23889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23890,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23889\/revisions\/23890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}