MIDSEASON OUTLOOK
Houston has just one win and no answers yet for QB Mills and improving the roster
Nearly midway through the regular season, the Texans have a 1-6-1 record and are veering toward another Top 3 pick in the NFL draft. The rebuilding franchise has been more competitive this season, tightening its point differential (-50) against last year’s lowest total in team history (-172). But as the Texans spend 10 days preparing for their trip against the muchimproved Giants, there’s still plenty of questions to answer before they regain respectability again.
Texans beat reporters Brooks Kubena and Jonathan M. Alexander give their midseason evaluations on Davis Mills, the coaching staff, the state of the franchise’s rebuild and a final prediction for the season.
Will the Texans draft a QB in 2023?
There may be no tougher evaluation on this roster than the one of Mills. He’s had an up and down year through the first nine weeks. One week he’s playing well, like his performance against Las Vegas in Week 7 and the next week he can be flat out bad like in Week 8 against Tennessee.
But what further makes him a tough evaluation is the factors surrounding him.
On one hand, he needs to be playing better. He’s in second season with a similar offense, and has far more experience than he had during his rookie year.
But on the other, aside from running back Dameon Pierce, Mills hasn’t been provided the weapons needed to truly have a successful offense. You can take a look at the best teams around league, and the Texans’ weapons pale in comparison to teams like the Bills, Eagles, Chiefs, Vikings, Bengals and others.
Against the Eagles Thursday, he played without his top two wide receivers, but in the first half threw two touchdowns.
Mills is has thrown for 1,656 yards, 10 touchdowns, eight interceptions and is completing 62.8 percent of his passes through eight games. He has an 81.2 passer rating. His stats during his rookie season were better.
In 13 games in 2021, he threw for 2,664 yards, 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, while completing 66.8 percent of his passes, and an 88.8 passer rating.
“I like a lot of the things that Davis (Mills) has done,” coach Lovie Smith said. “When you do evaluate him and just evaluating him based on last night, he didn’t have his two top receivers, but you can’t just look at that. How I evaluate him, he’s made a lot of good plays.
“I think with most young quarterbacks in the league, there’s some common things they’re all doing. They’re not playing consistent football like they will play eventually.”
In other words, Smith is giving Mills time and taking into account his lack of weapons and his youth.
But his time is running out and he hasn’t shown — even with his successes — that he is a franchise quarterback. The Texans have eight more games, and if the draft were today, they’d have the No. 2 overall pick.
In that case, they’d be faced with the decision to pick a franchise quarterback — either C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young. The Texans have other issues too, like their defensive line.
But teams rarely pass up on franchise quarterbacks when they need one.
Jonathan M. Alexander
Will Hamilton be retained as offensive coordinator?
Nick Caserio said in midOctober that “in the end, offensive football is about moving the ball and scoring points.” If we’re judging Pep Hamilton’s performance as a play-caller purely based on those terms, he’s hardly improved the offense’s efficiency when compared to the woeful 2021 system that led to Tim Kelly’s firing. Through eight games, the Texans rank last in the NFL in yards per drive (26.4) and are scoring almost exactly the same points per game (16.6) as they did last season (16.5).
The similarity is striking. Those major metrics haven’t changed despite the uptick in Hamilton’s run-oriented scheme behind blossoming rookie Dameon Pierce. The difference between the run game’s yards per rush this season (4.3) is significantly higher than last year’s last-place rate (3.4), but Pierce’s productivity bottoms out in the red zone (1.9) — NFL leading rusher Nick Chubb averages 3.3 yards per rush in the red zone — and underlines the limitations of what’s so far been a one-dimensional offense.
Houston’s passing game has so far regressed under Hamilton, a concerning development considering the third-time NFL
play-caller was partly promoted to offensive coordinator in the offseason to advance the progress of Davis Mills in the quarterback’s second season. The Texans average fewer yards per attempt (6.4) than last season (6.6), fewer passing yards per game (188.6) than in 2021 (194.4) and are converting fewer third downs (31.1 percent) than last year (39.7) largely because of the problems in the passing game.
Yes, Nico Collins has been sidelined for two games with a groin injury. But Houston’s leading receiver also missed three games with a hamstring injury in 2021, when there was a revolving door of slot receivers that included Anthony Moore, Danny Amendola, Chris Moore and Davion Davis. This year’s drop-off curiously involves Brandin Cooks, a disgruntled receiver who has been targeted as frequently as last season but isn’t as productive, especially on third downs (9.8 yards per target) compared to 2021 (4.9).
The Texans arguably have more combined talent at wide receiver and tight end this season. The run game is supposed to open up the pass in this runoriented system. Well, the run game is there, and Hamilton must rectify the passing-game issues to offer promise he can construct a more potent attack when the franchise acquires more talent in the offseason.
Brooks Kubena
How is Caserio’s rebuilding process going?
Of a 2021 roster overhaul that included 20 new players on one-year contracts, two on twoyear deals, a three-year contract and two trade acquisitions,
Caserio retained three starters, two backup receivers, a thirddown running back, a special teamer and punter on this year’s team. That’s 32 percent retention from a lost season that contained a one-and- done head coach and the franchise’s lowest point differential in history (-172). It’s uncertain whether four of those eight players will be retained after their contracts expire this season, which means defensive tackle Maliek Collins, linebacker Christian Kirksey, nickel safety Desmond King and punter Cam Johnston may very well be the only surviving members of Caserio’s cap-clearing strategy that was also supposed to identify core players within a competitive yet cost-effective culture.
Has it been worth it? That’s ultimately in the eye of Texans chair and CEO Cal McNair, whose family’s organization once again has one win through its first eight games. He’s on the hook paying for players like linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill ($3.7 million), who requested his release, and center Justin Britt ($3.6 million), who remains sidelined for personal reasons, while the former image-bearer of the team’s identity, Cooks, remains disgruntled after the team was unable to trade him.
Indeed, Caserio has been operating within a phone booth of a cap space situation, although some of it (like cutting tight end Pharaoh Brown three games into the season after signing him to a one-year deal that invokes a $3 million dead money hit) is partly of his own doing. Still, it’s fair to question whether Tremon Smith (who’s turning into Houston’s version of Patriots special teamer Matthew Slater), Rex Burkhead, Chris Moore and Phillip Dorsett within a field of 21 free agents yielded the most productive result.
It’s also fair to point out the Texans would’ve regained their full allotment of draft picks beginning in 2022 regardless of who they hired as GM, and that whoever else they might’ve been should have also generated a generous haul of draft picks by trading Deshaun Watson. What that deal might’ve been is a hypothetical discussion. How another GM might’ve spent draft picks is a topic for another section.
Isolate Caserio’s veteran acquisitions in 2022 — a strategy that continued with a moderately larger cap budget — and there still isn’t yet much to go on that the Texans are going to be a playoff competitor anytime soon.
Cornerback Steven Nelson is Caserio’s best signing this year. He’s a two-year, $9 million veteran who’s solidifying the position alongside No. 3 overall pick Derek Stingley Jr. But there’s reasonable doubt whether starting right guard A.J. Cann, 30, and defensive end Jerry
Hughes, 34, can maintain their productivity through the expiration of their contracts in 2024.
Caserio spent $13.2 million on four pass rushers who’ve been so far unable to help the Texans pressure quarterbacks at any higher rate this season (20.6 percent) than last year (20.7 percent), and the second-year executive curiously gave a twoyear, $7.5 million contract (nearly the equivalent of Maliek Collins’ two-year, $8.5 million deal) to Jalen Reeves-Maybin, whose snap share has overwhelmingly defined him as a special teams player (85 percent) than a defender (7 percent).
Will Caserio also have to overpay when the franchise’s cap space finally swells to a seventh-highest $48.7 million in the upcoming offseason?
Brooks Kubena
Predicting the second half of the season
The back half of the schedule is probably tougher. Their remaining opponents have a combined record of 39-33-1. The Texans have the seventh toughest remaining schedule.
The Texans remaining opponents include the Giants (6-2), Commanders (4-4), Dolphins (5-3), Browns (3-5), Cowboys (6-2), Chiefs (5-2), Titans (5-2), Jaguars (2-6) and Colts (3-5-1).
The Texans showed up against the undefeated Eagles. The Eagles just had more talent. They need to continue to do that and make improvements. The offense can’t go the entire fourth quarter without scoring a point. And the defense can’t give up 300-plus yards rushing.
Finishing in the fourth quarter has been their Achilles heel.
It’ll be important to see how Mills performs during the latter part of the season. He’s auditioning for the starting role next season. It’ll also be important to see how Cooks will respond when he returns to the field. A frustrated Cooks missed practice this week, after the Texans failed to trade him.
Things should change some when Maliek Collins, Nico Collins and Cooks return.
Those are three of their most talented players.
But wins during the final stretch of this season will be hard to come by.
Jonathan M. Alexander