Before anything else, football should be recognized for what it truly is: a game. It should be fun to watch. It should be fun to play. It should be entertaining. Sure, it might create a cardiac event here and there, but you might as well enjoy the ride, right?
That’s one of the reasons Tennessee Titans QB Will Levis was looking forward to visiting the Steel City this year once he got drafted and knew the Pittsburgh Steelers would be on the schedule. Even before he had any idea he would be starting last night’s game, he told reporters during the week that he had this game circled on his calendar.
Although he did not come out with the victory despite taking the game down to the wire, the experience on the whole did not disappoint, right down to the soundtrack. “You’ve got to enjoy environments like this. This is football, you’ve got to have fun with it. If you’re not having fun with it, why are you playing?”, he told reporters after the game, via the team’s website.
“That’s a cool tradition that they got here”, he said of the Heinz Field and now Acrisure Stadium history of playing the song “Renegade” by Styx before key defensive drives in the fourth quarter. “The song’s a banger. It’s a good song. It’s a good song. We’ve been playing it all week in practice, and it’s been stuck in my head, so it was cool to see the real thing”.
Unfortunately, however, not everything quite lived up to the hype, which tends to happen when you build things up in your mind. Or at the very least, Levis seemed to feel that the Titans staff did a very good job of preparing them for the environment.
“It was pretty loud. I’ve been in louder, so it was nothing crazy. I think we did a good job of simulating the environment during practice this week of making it even louder than I feel like it was out there”, he said of his in-stadium experience. “We were good on the operation and the communication, but hey, those fans showed out and they didn’t make it easy for us, but we got the job done for the most part operation-wise”.
As have many, many other teams in the past, the Titans worked this week to the soundtrack of Styx blaring during practice. It is a way to acclimate players for the game experience so that they are better prepared for the moment.
Although the Titans did eventually punt on the drive prior to which the stadium played “Renegade”, they were able to move the ball. A friendly roll on a punt had pinned them back on the 8-yard line, but Levis hit WR Treylon Burks for 21 on the first play. They picked up one more first down before stalling at the 41, after which the Steelers scored the winning touchdown.
In his second career start, the rookie quarterback completed 22-of-39 pass attempts for 262 yards. He failed to throw an interception after tying an NFL record with four touchdown passes in a debut and was intercepted once—on the last meaningful play of the game as he was looking for the go-ahead touchdown himself with seconds to spare.
