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Bench Davis Mills? 'I just don't think it's time,' says Texans coach Lovie Smith
Texans quarterback Davis Mills goes down on one of the four sacks he suffered at the hands of the Giants on Sunday.Anyone can see it at this point. Anyone can watch Davis Mills underthrow a game-opening bootleg at MetLife Stadium, average 2.
7 yards per first-half attempt while seeking out routes short of first downs and touchdowns, absorb sack upon third-down sack, and throw a red-zone interception and know Houston’s offensive leadership is not one that yet merits tenure. Eight games remain before a postseason the Texans haven’t yet been technically eliminated from, and the one-win franchise notched its seventh loss 24-16 on Sunday to the playoff-contending Giants. It was yet another game the Texas were technically one score from tying, but the woefully unproductive pairing of Mills and offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton has repeatedly prevented the Texans from realistically being in position to win. A foundering offense that entered the weekend scoring the NFL’s fifth-fewest points per game did not improve upon the return of leading receivers Nico Collins and Brandin Cooks. That Houston’s predictability and inefficiencies persisted despite each dynamic pass-catcher’s presence highlighted the core issues that continue to plague this team. Mills said the team’s offensive plan for Collins, who’d missed two games with a groin injury, and Cooks, who’d been sidelined a game for not practicing amid his desire to be traded, was “the same as it was before.” This was a particularly striking statement about an offense that entered the weekend averaging fewer passing yards per game under Hamilton than it did last year under fired play-caller Tim Kelly and whose inexplosive usage of Cooks complicated a relationship defined by dysfunction and discontent. Manufacturing yardage to both playmakers, Mills said, is founded on finding “ways to find easy completions to them so they can make plays.” That formula so far has been Houston’s remarkably predictable, borderline obstinate focus on establishing the run. Texans coach Lovie Smith said they know “getting off the bus we need to be able to run the football.” The Giants and blitz-happy defensive coordinator Don Martindale knew this, too. New York’s defense deployed a disguised scheme that running back Dameon Pierce said “bamboozled” the Texans for the majority of the first half. The ferocious fourth-round rookie was stuffed three times on Houston’s first three possessions, losing a yard in the combined attempts, and since he was silenced, so too was a passing game that is intrinsically bound to the ground game. Mills was 6-of-13 passing for 35 yards at halftime, which would have been a season low had it not bested the 17 first-half yards he’d totaled two weeks ago in another deficient defeat against the Titans. The poor early production is becoming a pattern for a 2021 third-round pick who began his career as a starter last season by throwing for 3 first-half yards in a 40-0 loss to the Bills. Smith has refused to bench Mills, although the Texans signed journeyman quarterback Kyle Allen to a one-year, $2.5 million deal in the offseason. “I just don’t think it’s time,” Smith said. “Simple as that. Quarterback position’s a little bit different.” Indeed, benching Mills would signal a departure from the head coach’s long-held confidence in his quarterback and project the franchise’s desire to draft a top-tier quarterback with a potential No. 1 overall pick. But Texans leadership has bucked the notion they're future-oriented, and if that’s the case, they must believe Mills is their best option despite his regression. Through nine games, Mills is completing fewer of his passes than last season , generating less yardage than in 2021 , and fielding a worse passer rating as a second-year veteran than he did as a rookie . Mills’ regression on third down within Hamilton’s offense is complicating the offense’s problems further. Mills failed to convert all five of his third-down dropbacks in the first half, which resulted in three-and-outs on three possessions and prevented the Texans from running enough plays that would have allowed them to possibly decipher Martindale’s wrinkles sooner than they did. Pierce finished the game with 94 yards on 17 carries, and Mills completed 22 of 37 passes for 319 yards. But the majority of that production began after the Texans were already down 14-3 in the second half. “You’ve got to sustain drives in order to see exactly what the game plan’s supposed to be,” Smith said. “And we weren’t able to do that.” Part of the issue stems from Mills’ tendency to miss on deeper pass attempts on early downs and the offense’s overall tendency for the quarterback to pursue checkdown receivers. Mills underthrew tight end O.J. Howard on a play-action bootleg on the first play of the game. His sideline toss to Cooks on the first play of the third drive also fell short. On the fourth drive, Hamilton called a first-down swing pass to Cooks that generated just a yard, and the Texans were forced to a kick a red-zone field goal two plays later.
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