Second-Year Scouting Report: Davis Mills

We continue to roll through the second-year players at FTN, as training camps get underway and fantasy drafts quickly approach. Fantasy managers tend to inflate the value of rookies because they are the shiny new toys with unknown possibilities at the NFL level, which tends to lead to discounts on second-year players before we’ve seen them develop at the NFL level. 

However, that is difficult to do at the quarterback position this season. The 2021 quarterback class was highly touted and saw five quarterbacks selected in the first half of the first round. This year, only one quarterback (Kenny Pickett) found his way into the first two rounds. Despite that, there are still players who are slipping through the cracks after having time to acclimate to the NFL. A great example of that is Davis Mills.

Davis Mills, QB, Houston Texans

Mills was selected in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft as a developmental prospect by the Houston Texans. The Stanford product entered college during the 2017 season as a top-2 quarterback prospect with a four- or five-star rating (depending on which scouting service you use). Ultimately, that quarterback class fell flat across the board in college, with injuries and a much better class behind them. Injuries hindered Mills’ growth during his four years at Stanford. He only threw 438 passes and 18 touchdowns during his career in college while playing in just 14 career games. However, he was able to flash accuracy (career 65.5 completion percentage) and showed the ability to protect the football (eight career interceptions). Those traits, combined with his pedigree, got him selected on the second day of the draft.

The Texans likely had no urge to see Mills in game action during his rookie season, hoping that Tyrod Taylor would be able to stay healthy and provide veteran leadership on a young team with minimal talent. Unfortunately, a Week 2 injury knocked Taylor out of the starting lineup, forcing the team to see what Mills offered after a limited collegiate career. Taylor would ultimately return midseason to start for four more games, but it became clear that Mills showed enough to warrant a longer look. Below you’ll find the second-year scouting report for Davis Mills.

What Went Right

The most important thing that went right for Davis Mills in 2021 was the fact that when he was forced into playing time, he showed he could have success at the NFL level. Mills flashed NFL arm strength and the ability to push the ball down the field. Mills had four games with over 300 passing yards and five games with multiple passing touchdowns. He only had six games with at least one interception and only had two games where he turned the ball over multiple times.

He quickly established rapport with Brandin Cooks, feeding his best player a steady diet of targets throughout the season. As the season went on, Mills showed his ability to process NFL secondaries and started to spread the ball out to targets like Nico Collins, Danny Amendola, Chris Conley and Brevin Jordan.

By the end of the season, Mills put together a rookie year that saw him complete a respectable 66.7% of his passes for 2,664 yards and 16 touchdowns with 10 interceptions in 13 games played. You could argue that Mills outplayed all of the rookie quarterbacks that were drafted ahead of him except Mac Jones. He showed enough to allow the Texans to forego drafting a potential replacement in a weak quarterback class and head into the 2022 season with Mills as the entrenched starter.

What Went Wrong

Even when Mills was eventually named the starter, the Texans maintained the belief that he was a developmental quarterback. Mills averaged just 30.3 passing attempts per game throughout the season even though the team was in negative game scripts for most of the year. The rookie quarterback had just five games where he attempted more than 30 throws. Unfortunately, the biggest problem for Mills in his rookie season had nothing to do with him. The Texans were just bad.

Mills took 31 sacks in his first season behind a patchwork offensive line that was missing its most talented player (Laremy Tunsil). Houston allowed 44 sacks as a team, which was the ninth most in the NFL last season. Mills was pressured 137 times on 293 passing attempts throughout the season. Unfortunately, his receiving corps wasn’t much better. Outside of Brandin Cooks, the Texans pass-catchers featured a bunch of players who haven’t shown much success at the NFL level. Mills was able to overcome that to a degree, but it’s hard to imagine having a massive ceiling in fantasy when your top targets outside of Cooks are Nico Collins, David Johnson, Danny Amendola and Chris Conley.

Prognosis Entering 2022

In redraft leagues, Mills is an interesting player for the 2022 season. According to NFFC ADP, Mills has been going off draft boards as the QB28 in fantasy leagues throughout July, making him a free dart-throw at QB2 for teams that prioritized an early quarterback. At the very least, we know that Mills will be the Texans starting quarterback as long as he’s healthy, since the team let Tyrod Taylor hit free agency.

To Houston’s credit, they attempted to build up the team around Mills to give him a fair shot to establish himself as the quarterback of the future. Tunsil is back and healthy, and the team drafted Kenyon Green in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft to play left guard. The team also added A.J. Cann in free agency to play right guard and hope that Justin Britt and Tytus Howard can pick up where they left off at the end of last season. The Texans also upgraded their running back room by adding Marlon Mack and drafting Dameon Pierce to hopefully provide a competent run game to help take pressure off Mills and keep teams honest.

Unfortunately, his pass-catchers haven’t improved much. Brandin Cooks and Nico Collins are solid receivers, but there are a lot of question marks beyond that. Houston will hope Philip Dorsett can stay healthy and continue to win deep. The team also still has Chris Conley as a depth receiver and will hope a good offseason helps Brevin Jordan establish himself as a good receiving threat at the tight end position. Unfortunately, their second-round pick this season (John Metchie) was diagnosed with cancer and won’t be available for the 2022 season. Even without that, his path to playing time was muddied as he recovered from a late-season ACL tear in college.

Given his cost, I’m interested in Mills as my QB2 in redraft leagues this season. We have seen him produce with underwhelming weapons around him once, and one can only hope an offseason of development will help him process the game faster and utilize those pieces. The team added solid pieces in front of him on the offensive line to give him more time to make plays down the field. On teams where I take a quarterback early in drafts, Mills makes a lot of sense as QB2 with a solid floor during bye weeks or potential injuries.

Dynasty Outlook

Unfortunately, it is hard to be as optimistic about Mills as a dynasty asset. Even if Mills does develop and take steps as the starting quarterback during the 2022 season, Houston is projected to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. In a perfect world, the team would look at Mills’ performance and understand the most valuable asset any team can have is a young quarterback on a rookie deal so they can draft players around him and spend up in free agency at other positions. Vegas currently has Houston tied with the Falcons for the lowest win total in the NFL at 4.5 games. If the 2023 quarterback class is strong (and there are already several names who are getting buzz like C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young and Will Levis among others), then it will be very difficult for Houston to pass on the quarterback position again if they are a top-3 pick.

The good news is that is ultimately suppressing Mills’ value in dynasty leagues. In a few SuperFlex leagues that I play in, I was able to acquire him for a depth player (like Darrell Henderson) and a late 2022 second-round rookie pick. For teams that need immediate depth (he will function as my QB3 and possible streaming option), that is an affordable price to acquire a quarterback who will start for the entire season unless he is injured. If he plays excessively well, or the Texans are good enough to avoid being a top-5 pick next season, Mills could very well hold onto his job beyond this season. However, dynasty managers need to exercise caution, because even a strong season on a bad team may not save him from being replaced by a more talented rookie after 2022. At the very least, he has shown the ability to be a fine depth quarterback in dynasty leagues as a short-term investment.