Tennessee Titans QB Will Levis probably had a good idea that the plan was for him to start eventually. Teams don’t ordinarily trade up to the top of the second round to draft a quarterback they envision as a long-term backup. What he didn’t know was that he would be starting by the middle of his rookie season.
Yet that didn’t stop him from looking forward to the Titans playing the Pittsburgh Steelers long before he knew that he would be on the field for the game. That used to be true for players all across the league annually, though it seems to have become less common in recent years—no wonder why.
“Playing or not, I’ve had this game circled on the schedule because of how great the environment is going to be”, he is quoted as telling reporters this week by Jim Wyatt for the team’s website. “I know their fans are going to come out and it’s going to be a nice environment. So, we are ready to handle it. I am looking forward to taking it all in and then just doing my thing”.
Born in Newton, MA and growing up in Madison, CT, Levis did initially attend Penn State from 2018 to 2020 before transferring to Kentucky in 2021. He’s not wholly unfamiliar with Pennsylvania, then, even if wasn’t quite frequenting the Steel City.
But it’s not as though you need to live there to understand the history behind the Steelers. All you have to do is talk to a passionate fan or two to get a sense of what football means to the city, and what the environment must be like at a game.
While the team’s recent failures have had a negative effect on attendance, they still continue to sell out every game, and the fans who do attend certainly let their voices be heard. Increasingly, they tend to voice themselves against their own team, particularly their offense, but one hopes they will have plenty to cheer for tonight.
In actuality, the Steelers have not been great on Thursday Night Football under head coach Mike Tomlin. They are 8-9, riding an active three-game losing streak, though all three of those losses were on the road. At home on Thursday night, they are 6-1, their most recent home Thursday game being a blowout 52-21 win in 2018 over the Carolina Panthers.
This will be the first Thursday Night Football game for Acrisure Stadium, the rebranded name for Heinz Field, after Pittsburgh played an away game last year, a 29-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns. They have played Tennessee three times on Thursday night under Tomlin, going 2-1. Their most recent bout was a 40-17 blowout win at home in 2017. I’ll take more of the same.
