Hello Dolphins fans! Congratulations on your recent acquisition of free agent quarterback Malik Willis.
As exciting as this time is, you’re no doubt wondering what kind of player, exactly, your team has just signed, and I’m here to help as much as I can. Here’s a brief overview of Willis’ career, what he brings to your team, and what you might want to watch out for as your newly signed free agent takes the field in a new uniform.
Willis is one of the great turnaround stories in recent NFL history.
Drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft, Willis was a bust in his first NFL stop. He made just three starts across two seasons, completed just 53% of his passes in a Titans uniform, and was replaced the moment the Titans got a chance at someone they thought was better.
That someone turned out to be Will Levis, whom the Titans selected in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Picking Levis made Willis expendable, and just before the 2024 season kicked off, they dealt him to the Packers for a seventh round pick, compensation worth only slightly more than a bag of footballs.
Willis arrived in Green Bay on August 26, 2024, and just a few days later, he was on a plane headed for Brazil with the Packers for their season-opening game in Rio de Janeiro. Willis would end up replacing Jordan Love on the final drive that game, as Love sustained what looked to be a serious knee injury. Willis threw one pass (it fell incomplete) and then was sacked on the final play of the game as he tried to set up a Hail Mary throw.
Love’s injury turned out to be significant but not season-ending; he’d be on the shelf for a few weeks, but would return at some point. The Packers needed Willis, barely two weeks into his time with the team, to start and save their season from disaster just as it was getting started.
Not only did he start, he thrived. In Week 2, Willis completed 12 of 14 passes for 122 yards and a touchdown in a wildly revamped Packers offense. Most of his job that day was handing off to Josh Jacobs, who carried the ball 32 times for 151 yards, but Willis deftly operated an offense so different from what the Packers usually run as to be nearly unrecognizable. The Packers eked out a 16-10 win.
With Love still out the next week, Willis started on the road against his old team, the Tennessee Titans, and led the Packers to a second victory. He was again supremely efficient, and did a bit more as a dropback passer this time around.
He rode to the rescue a third time in Week 8. Jordan Love started that game, but a groin injury knocked him out. In came Willis, who sparked a game-winning drive with a late shot to Jayden Reed.
Willis couldn’t add a fourth victory to his resume when he again got extended action in Week 18, but still played well, and he entered 2025 as the Packers’ backup quarterback. Once again, the Packers had to turn to Willis for help on multiple occasions.
With Love out for a drive, he threw a seeing-eye touchdown pass to Christian Watson against the Giants in Week 11, and then stepped in for extended action against the Bears in Week 16. Willis played well, though the Packers would fall to the Bears, and he’d play even better with Love still battling concussion symptoms the following week. Derrick Henry was too much for the Packers’ defense to overcome, but Willis was on fire in his only start of the 2025 season, completing 18 of 21 passes for 288 yards and a touchdown while running for 60 yards and two scores.
The good: Willis is an exciting and capable backup quarterback
Clearly, Willis can get the job done in the right circumstances, and the Packers have done a great job of putting him in those circumstances the last two years. When they’ve needed him to deliver, he has.
In fact, Willis might be close to the perfect backup quarterback. He’s a capable enough passer to run most of your standard offense, but also brings the additional chaos of being able to take off like a running back. Numerous times in the past two years we’ve seen defenses struggle to adapt to the sudden addition of a fleet-footed quarterback to the Packers’ offense. In fact, he could probably stand to run even more when he’s on the field — occasionally, he’s a little hesitant to take off.
And even if he’s not doing the “typical” offense, he can run some wacky stuff. Go back and watch the film of the Packers’ win over the Colts in 2024. Willis was running single-wing spinner concepts mixed with screens, rollouts, and dropback passing, despite having been in Green Bay for barely two weeks. He’s smart, talented, and athletic.
The bad: Nobody really knows what Malik Willis is as a dropback passer
There are, however, significant and unavoidable questions about how much of his success in Green Bay is really a result of Willis’ abilities and how much of it is a result of Matt LaFleur’s masterful gameplanning around him.
By some estimates, Willis has thrown fewer than 30 passes in a traditional dropback passing circumstance. That’s an incredibly small number considering what he’s getting on the open market in free agency. Whatever his abilities are, and there are some to be excited about, that’s a pretty small exhibition of said abilities before making a big commitment. To be fair, teams routinely spend millions of dollars and a high draft pick on players who have literally never thrown an NFL pass, relying entirely on projections, but I’m not sure that makes the Willis situation better. Yes, he’s succeeded in Green Bay. He also failed in Tennessee. Make of that what you will.
Additionally, even from what we’ve seen, Willis is a bit scattershot as a passer. Yes, his raw stats look good, but he airmailed more than a few passes in the dropback game, and the passing game in which he operated was very different from the traditional game the Packers run.
Bottom line: Willis has been exciting and successful in Green Bay, but he’s still relatively unknown
I’d like nothing more than to see Willis pay off every bit of what has now been invested in him. He’s been a gem of a player and a person with the Packers, and his turnaround from where he was as a member of the Titans was incredible to watch.
But a three-year, $67.5 million deal (with $45 million guaranteed) is a very big commitment for a player who was in a very unique set of circumstances with the Packers. Green Bay was tailor-made to take advantage of his abilities, and the fact that it worked is as much a testament to the staff in Green Bay as it is to what Willis did.
Still, Willis was the one on the field running the plays and throwing the passes. We’ve seen gimmicky gameplans and players fail again and again in the NFL. Willis didn’t. He rebuilt his career, paid off the Packers’ hopes for him, and now gets a chance to show his first stint as a starter wasn’t a good representation of what he is as a player.
For all the hemming and hawing about what he is as a player, one thing is true: Willis does the things he’s good at very well. That’s not nothing in the NFL. If you’ve got a skill set that helps your team succeed, you can find a job. Willis did that with the Packers, and now he gets a chance to do it again.
I’m rooting for him. Let’s hope for the best.
