Chris Kouffman@ckparrot
This is a Malik Willis ACCURACY post.
Something Willis said in his opening presser caught my attention as it ties in with other head-scratching observations I had while looking into him the last 3 months.
TLDR - his accuracy improvement is starting to remind me of JOSH ALLEN.
THE QUOTE
"My first year didn't go great, so I went to figure out things that would help me. I started working with this guy in Jacksonville. He started teaching me the mechanics of throwing- using my hips and this lower body that I have, this strength that we work for, instead of just using all arm, all the time, and it's just less consistent, and more strain on your body. So working that over the last 4 years, it's been super beneficial. It's helped me become way more accurate and consistent. Obviously there's times where you've got to make throws that aren't going to be perfect platforms, and that's whatever God has given you, but whenever you can be consistent when consistent is there, I think that's great."
THE TIMING
One of the reasons the quote stood out to me was because Malik offered a missing puzzle piece as it pertains to the timing of his development as a pro. Most people (lazily, IMO) exclusively credit Packers head coach Matt LaFleur for Willis's transformation from rookie flop to one of the hottest free agents on market. And while no doubt the Green Bay system helped Malik on his journey, there are obvious flaws in that hypothesis.
Malik Willis started his first games for the Packers in 2024 a mere THREE WEEKS after they traded for him. This was anything but ideal. He barely knew the playbook, barely knew his new teammates. He hardly had the time to absorb any coaching from his new team, let alone from a Head Coach who had a million more pressing matters to attend than the development of a player his team had just flipped a casual 7th round pick for during final cuts.
But injuries happen, and Willis was pressed into duty ultra-early. He won his first start against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 2 of the 2024 season. Then he beat, and frankly embarrassed, Mike Vrabel's Tennessee Titans in Week 3.
Willis only started 3 games during his time in Green Bay, and 2 of them happened before Matt LaFleur, or frankly any of the Packers staff, could have significantly impacted his development arc.
The obvious conclusion is that Willis had already improved from his rookie season, had already improved over what he showed in Hugh Freeze's offense at Liberty, and nobody realized it because he had spent the entirety of 2023 buried on Tennessee's depth chart behind the starter Ryan Tannehill and his newly-picked successor Will Levis.
So when you see Malik talk about how he began working with a QB specialist in the 2023 off season, suddenly that timing becomes more conspicuous than the change of uniform and helmet.
THE NUMBERS
Let's put some numbers on this. Pro Football Focus does an "adjusted" accuracy percentage where they only count "aimed" throws (i.e. no spikes or throwaways) and then credit the QB for any receiver drops.
I was a big fan of Willis's coming out of Liberty in 2022. But accuracy was never a big part of the story on him. His adjusted accuracy was only about 72% during his final 2 seasons with the Flames. To put into context, Josh Allen (of whom I was also a big fan) had about 67% adjusted accuracy at Wyoming.
I bring up Josh Allen because he's the quintessential "inaccurate" QB prospect who (depending on who you talk to) did the "impossible" by wholly improving his accuracy. Willis's accuracy at Liberty was only 5% better than Allen's at Wyoming. And when you account for Allen's 12.8 yards average depth of target on his throws versus Willis's 11.4 yards average, "shot selection" (forgive the basketball term) probably accounts for the bulk of even that marginal difference.
Sure enough, PFF recorded a 68% adjusted accuracy for Malik Willis in the preseason of his rookie year, followed by 67% during a regular season for which Willis himself admits he was unprepared. "Not great, Bob!"
Fast-forward. The Titans GM who drafted Willis got fired mid-season out of embarrassment over the A.J. Brown trade. Local writers talked about how Malik's relaxed demeanor didn't jive with Mike Vrabel's preference for a more fiery, Brady-like competitor. Malik himself says that when Vrabel benched him as a rookie it was because he was worried that the smallish Willis was going to get hurt. So Vrabel and the new GM draft a much bigger, more explicitly fiery QB in Will Levis. Effectively, Malik Willis was done in Tennessee. Tannehill was still the starter, and there was no way the shiny new 33rd overall pick was going to be QB3 on the depth chart.
All that to say, preseason was the only action Malik Willis was destined to get in 2023. But strangely, between the 57 aimed passes he had in preseason and the 5 he had in the regular season, his adjusted accuracy jumped all the way to 81%. Willis's average depth of target remained virtually unchanged (8.8 yards to 8.9 yards) from 2022 to 2023, but his accuracy jumped multiple levels.
Which brings us back to Malik's story about working with a specialist in Jacksonville to develop more consistent lower-body mechanics during that 2023 off-season.
A year later, Willis is still with the Titans during the 2024 preseason and puts out a still-elevated 79% adjusted accuracy on mostly the same average depth (8.6 yards). Then he starts 2 games for the Packers, a mere 3 weeks after being traded, still crash-coursing the playbook and trying to find chemistry with his new teammates, and right out of the gate puts out an impressive 84% adjusted accuracy in those 2 games.
And then in the 2025 regular season, he breaks the charts with 94% adjusted accuracy at 9.7 yards average depth.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
The numbers tell us the WHAT - that Malik Willis went from being a guy with "Bad Josh Allen" accuracy to being a guy with "Good Josh Allen" accuracy.
They also tell us the WHEN - that this happened before Malik boarded his first plane to Green Bay.
And further, Willis himself has been trying to tell us HOW and the WHY.
So while "sample size" is the criticism du jour when it comes to Willis, we can actually go back far enough to say that we've now seen over 200+ aimed passes since he first began working with that QB specialist in Jacksonville. We can see that his true accuracy is multiple levels above not only what he was in his rookie year with the Titans, but also multiple levels above what he was in a college system facing college opponents at Liberty University.
Whether the decision-making component has or will continue to develop for Malik Willis is anyone's guess. That is a subject for a different post.
Malik Willis is a true accuracy development story, much like Josh Allen's famously thought-impossible journey from being the "inaccurate" 1st round pick that everyone in the world criticized, to an elite passer with great accuracy.
And if Willis has improved one area of his game most talking heads seem to be convinced doesn't significantly improve for professionals, who is to say he hasn't improved other areas?
Author's Note: No, I didn't use AI for this. It's pure ChatCKP.
