The Houston Texans are not a team that is expected to hoist the Lombardi Trophy next season, but there are other reasons to be intrigued by this franchise. Houston brought in a handful of interesting rookies on both sides of the ball, it has a new head coach in Lovie Smith and then a prospective franchise quarterback in Davis Mills.
Houston elected against selecting a quarterback in the 2022 NFL Draft, and is set to move forward with last year’s third-round pick out of Stanford. In 13 games with 11 starts last year, Mills completed 66.8 percent of his passes for 2,664 yards, 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He went 2-9 as the starter, but did improve as the season went on. In fact, Mills had the highest red-zone passer rating in 2021.Â
Mills showed some potential in his rookie season, but some NFL bettors are very high on the 23-year-old. In fact, he’s received some action to lead the NFL in passing yards in 2022. According to Caesars Sportsbook, Mills, who has the 31st-shortest odds at +12500 to lead the league in passing yards in 2022, has collected the 15th-most money to do so. He’s received more money to lead the NFL in passing yards than Russell Wilson (+1500), Kirk Cousins (+1500) and Aaron Rodgers (+1800).Â
Mills is certainly a “value bet,” but Wilson, Cousins and Rodgers have odds that are still intriguing, as they are barely in the top 10. Mills receiving more money than those three players is pretty notable.Â
If the Texans are not one of the winningest teams in the NFL as many predict, then they should be throwing the ball plenty. Still, Mills threw 204.9 passing yards per game last year, which ranked No. 28 in the NFL. The Texans are certainly hoping Mills makes the jump some bettors are hoping for.
“You don’t give out starting positions in the spring, but I love what Davis has done. He’s our quarterback going into the season,” coach Smith told Rich Eisen in February, per Pro Football Talk. “There’s a lot of positions I’m worried about. Quarterback is not one of them.”