Davis Mills is altering the Texans’ 2022 plans before our eyes
The Houston Texans had very little going for them early in the 2022 NFL season. Now they may have a little something in QB Davis Mills.
The Houston Texans came into the 2022 season with very little going for them, at least from the outside looking in.
Houston’s roster full of one-year free agent contracts and weird trades, no first or second-round draft picks in 2021, and just generally a lack of foundational talent seemed like it would be a complete disaster for first-year head coach David Culley.
But, is it fair to say the Texans are a really impressive 4-11 this season? Culley has done a nice job with this roster and has dealt with a tumultuous off-field situation with Deshaun Watson. Although the plan was obviously for Tyrod Taylor to start at QB for this Texans team, rookie quarterback Davis Mills — the team’s top pick in 2021 — has been quite the revelation.
Davis Mills has been a revelation for the Houston Texans
Throughout the course of the 2021 NFL season, I think most would say that New England Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones has been the most impressive so far of the 2021 class.
As the season has gone along, however, it’s not outlandish to throw Davis Mills in that discussion.
Mills has looked impressive lately, but some of it was to be taken with a grain of salt. Considering his most impressive outing heading into Week 16 NFL action was against the Jacksonville Jaguars, it was hard to know how “for real” Mills was.
Now, two weeks in a row, the Houston offense has posted 30-plus points and Mills has been a key reason why.
He just threw for 254 yards and a pair of touchdowns, completing about 78 percent of his passes against the playoff-hopeful Los Angeles Chargers.
And the Texans rolled.
In one of the more shocking upsets of the week, the Texans kind of laid it on the Chargers in this game, and Mills showed some nice development in this game.
His development has not come as a shock to the Texans’ coaching staff, which obviously bought into his small sample size at Stanford, but his rapid development has undoubtedly affected the Texans’ 2022 plans.
Questions still obviously surround Deshaun Watson off the field, but his future in the NFL — if anywhere — is not in Houston.
Mills has done enough that this rebuilding Texans team can afford to give him the 2022 season as they continue to attempt to build the roster. They no longer have to force feed a quarterback with their first-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft nor do they have to pick one with whatever selections they get from a hypothetical Deshaun Watson trade.
Davis Mills’ development this season has allowed the Houston Texans to take the best player available all throughout the 2022 NFL Draft and who knows? Maybe they’ll discover after giving him an entire offseason that they’ve got something really special.