Texans quarterback Davis Mills’ full potential wasn’t on display in limited preseason action
Davis Mills, whose improvement is pivotal to the future of the Texans franchise, didn't have a lot to work with in first preseason game against the Saints.
By
Aaron Wilson
August 14, 2022
HOUSTON — It was never intended to be a real showcase for Texans quarterback Davis Mills to show off his strong arm or delvie deeply into the nuances of the playbook that offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton has installed.
By the sheer nature of preseason football, especially when there’s no competition for the starting job, the goals change. That’s by design For Mills, that’s why an unproductive pair of three-and-out series with a fairly vanilla strategy while playing without Pro Bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil and star wide receiver Brandin Cooks isn’t a legitimate cause for alarm.
Davis Mills, offense had underwhelming debut
Mills, whose improvement is pivotal to the future of the franchise and represents the bigger picture mission of the season for a rebuilding team, didn’t have a lot to work with. Mills threw just three passes, completing all of them for 14 yards and an 86.1 passer rating. His first pass went to Chris Conley, for a loss. He threw shy of the first-down marker on a third down.
And his third pass led up to his final three-and-out before being replaced by third-string quarterback Jeff Driskel, who threw three interceptions and also led the Texans to a comeback victory with a late touchdown pass to undrafted rookie wide receiver Johnny Johnson III. The grade for Mills: incomplete.
“I felt comfortable going out there and picking up where we left of with training camp,”
Mills said. “Now we’re onto the real stuff, onto the games. I’m comfortable out there. Obviously, I would have like to put together some longer drives, but I mean, it felt like I handled everything well. We saw the defense and thought we executed well. Overall, we ended up with a win tonight. The whole team put together enough to get the win, and that’s all we care about.”
“Overall, I think we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit too much tonight. A lot of penalty yards. Those add up and put us in third-and-long situations that you don’t want to live in. I had to play out of that a lot last year, and it’s tough. So, we want to stay ahead of the sticks in that regard.”
Mills looked composed and smooth, but penalties and a lack of a running game with Marlon Mack in the game didn’t generate any big plays.
There were no real conclusions or revelations to be gleaned from his short appearance. He played fine with his usual sound mechanics. Situationally, the Texans’ offense just didn’t click, and they didn’t run their more intricate portions of the playbook.
The best takeaway surrounding Mills: he made it out of the game completely healthy,
unlike New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson, who’s undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery for a meniscus issue.
The most exciting element of the night for the Texans’ offense was the
performance of rookie running back Dameon Pierce, who used a punishing, downhill style to rush for 49 yards on five carries.
Texans followed a conservative approach
“As far as being conservative, yeah, it’s our first preseason game,” Texans coach Lovie Smith said. “And we’re going to play a lot of players. I don’t think the first preseason game is about tricking them an awful lot. We want to play kind of man-on-man football so we can get a good evaluation on a lot of players. I think we were able to do that. But we wanted to be more productive early on. Of course, that wasn’t a part of the plan. But as we grow, we’ll get better.”
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