1. I've never had an issue with the Mills pick. As I said at the time, if you have a conviction on a QB, take him. If it works out, that's great. If it doesn't, at least you tried. I saw things I liked about Mills on the little video I've seen. Mainly his ability and willingness to throw into tight spaces.Agreed, to answer your questions,
1. I like the Mills pick. It's a slight gamble, but he's going to be working with a similar offense that he did in college under Shaw who fully believes in Mills talent and make no mistake that Mills has talent. The Pep/Shaw connection is why Mills was the pick.
2. Did they get as much out of the draft as they should have? The jury is out but I hope that they get 2 starters out of this draft. Collins and Jordan have starter level ability and truth is if Mills hits, the rest of this draft wont matter.
3. Do I think they got all they could've out of FA. I'm hoping they got 3 starters that are better than the guys they're replacing. I think they got that with Mitchell/King/Kirksey/DT's and on offense I expect the RB's and Taylor/Britt/Cannon to start and be upgrades on the OL. They also added an all pro KR/PR guy. Do I think Caserio did a perfect job in FA? Nope, I didn't like the DJ re-signing and there were some pretty non- descript CB's that were brought in and although it was a mistake the Finley wasn't a terrible mistake. BTW, I do like that most of the FA deals were 1 or 2 yr deals that will allow cap flexibility.
4. I liked the Cannon trade. (We dont know if he would've been released and even if he was, it's doubtful that he would've signed as a FA on a 4-12 re-building team.
5. UDFA's, we dont know that answer yet. Hopefully he finds some WW pickup gems but we dont know how that's going to turn out but I'm with you in that I wish they would've picked up Finley off WW instead of the late rd pick swap.
One thing we haven't talked about is the re-structure of Cooks/Tunsil. You dont like them, I like them for their veteran leadership/talent levels. There has to be some vet leadership. The way the Mercilus re-structure is set up I like because the Texans can get out from under that mistake after this yr.
Looking forward to your responses.
2 & 4. Caserio began the process with 8 picks. He ended up with 5, and lost another in 2022. That made no sense. Wasting picks on Cannon and the QB that was cut was ridiculous. I expected Caserio to come away with more picks, either in this draft or the future. Not the direction I thought the draft would go at all.
3. None of the free agents signed by Caserio in 2021 will be integral parts of the Texans next playoff team. He wasted a lot of roster room on special teamers. That he had to renegotiate vet contracts to do that was asinine. I think he's trying to show Kyle that he's improving the team, all the while preparing for the tank. If you're going to tank...
5. ...tank right. Get young players in. Not wasting roster room on 28 year olds who will never make it. 8 UDFAs? That's ridiculously low.
Caserio will come up with some wins out of this offseason. Will they mitigate the mistakes he made? Maybe. But I'm not going to pretend he didn't make mistakes and that everything he touched will turn to gold.