Even so, the fans in San Fran were about as positive on Montana as
TxnsJuggernaut1 is on Mills. Even though Montana was pretty good in college, he still didn't draw much interest from NFL scouts and teams. Montana had a good amount of college experience, but it still took him until his 3rd season to really put it together. Mills doesn't have much college experience, so shouldn't we at least give him this season to see if he has potential?
Montana actually played well the first year he started, which was his second year in the league.
He was the 4th QBs drafted.
Back then a QB with a net positive TD/INT was considered good.
Montana was 15/9 in 7 games.
Here's how all the QBs fared that year:
Check out the 1980 NFL Passing Stats and more on Pro-football-reference.com
www.pro-football-reference.com
If you prorate his number to a full 16 games, he would have led the league in passing TD while maintaining the second best TD/Int ratio behind Bartowski 31/16.
....
As for Texans players, I always want them to be the best they can be.
I have a rule of not talking down players on game day and I would cheer for them as long as they keep playing hard.
(I do sometimes make fun of certain things during the course of the game, but in good nature.)
Critique of their games come afterward; it's part of the watching and learning more and more about the game.
There used to be a complete guide by Bill Walsh on what he looks for in a QB, but I can't find it.
This is part of it:
Bill Walsh outlined how he evaluated quarterbacks in his 1998 book Finding the Winning Edge; Five QBs in the 2021 NFL Draft class are expected to be selected in the first round - how well do they each match Walshs criteria?
www.skysports.com
I use his method to evaluate and Mills doesn't score high overall.
As I've said; I'm tired of QB in the borderline top ten (like what Schaub was for maybe a year or two).
Schaub isn't as mobile as Mills, but he went from one read to the next very quickly.
After some years, Schaub learned to improve his delivery such that it was quick enough to get the ball out on time (which he lost toward the end of his time here in Houston).
Mills has a quick delivery, but he's still slow with his progression.
Yes, it can be improved.
We'll see how much and how soon he can improve.