The Houston Texans didn’t draft Stanford’s Davis Mills in the third round, their first pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, and not have a plan for the quarterback for his rookie season. In fact, when the Texans selected Mills with the 67th overall selection, it might have signaled the end of Deshaun Watson wearing No. 4 for the Texans altogether.
Unless Mills has an outstanding training camp with the Houston Texans later this summer, he won’t be the Texans starting quarterback when Week 1 arrives, but that doesn’t mean at some point during the upcoming 2021 season Mills won’t be in the starter’s role on offense.
It seems like a given, unless there is a drastic change in the level of play for either Mills or Jeff Driskel, that Tyrod Taylor is in the lead to be the top choice to start at quarterback for the Texans. That is OK for the start of the ’21 season, taking over for Watson, who wants to be traded or could be asked to sit for a while by the NFL depending on the outcome of his off-the-field issues.
Mills might be the future of the Houston Texans being he was a third-round pick, but will he be a rookie quarterback that will be thrown into the starting lineup right from the start, or will he be a quarterback who will get the proper amount of time to learn the position?
Houston Texans: David Mills won’t be Deshaun Watson
There isn’t a single quarterback on the roster of the Houston Texans that will be the next Deshaun Watson, because there isn’t another Watson walking through the door of the facility, but what we don’t know is how good can Mills become with the proper coaching.
So Mills, Driskel or Taylor won’t replace Watson’s talent, but with Mills he can become an exciting quarterback for this franchise, as Taylor, for what it seems, is a one-year signing for the Texans in ’21.
With Mills, he’s coming off a three-year collegiate career with the Cardinal where he passed for 3,468 yards with 18 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Those aren’t the most outstanding stats, but with the team expectations being as low as they are, if the Texans do have a slow start to the season, there could be a possibility of a change at quarterback, which wouldn’t be surprising.
Houston begins the season against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who are in the same type of rebuild as the Texans with a new head coach and quarterback. From there, the Texans are scheduled to face the Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots for their first five games of the season.
That isn’t the easiest schedule for a team like the Texans to start the season, so if Taylor struggles, and Driskel isn’t the second option at quarterback, why not give Mills a chance to see where he stands and give him some experience as a rookie?
In all honesty, this is a likely scenario, and if Mills does become the starting quarterback for the Texans at some point in ’21, it isn’t such a bad thing for the future of the franchise, as that is what is most important moving forward.
Houston eventually needs to find out exactly if Mills can become the Texans quarterback of the future, because they will most likely have a top five choice in the ’22 NFL Draft, and if that is the case, they’ll really start making the tough decisions for their roster, including who the main quarterback will be.