Quarterback masquerade pointless
HOUSTON — Pep Hamilton said the Texans had not made any changes at quarterback. But the offensive playcaller can deliver a halftruth in the name of a supposed competitive advantage, a strange exercise of hiding a secret that only lasts a few minutes.
Coaches don't divvy up crucial first-team snaps in practice just to create a smoke screen. They can, however, increase the backup's role in practice without formally announcing a change to the players or the media, ensure the productivity of the week's practices confirms the move they want to make, then anoint their new quarterback before Sunday's first snap.
But the Davis Millskyle Allen masquerade, which really only gave Texans fans another topic to despair about at the Thanksgiving dinner table, is like a stadium full of people waiting expectantly for the bullpen gates to open after a pitcher just surrendered yet another home run during an inning in which he's getting rocked.
Robert Saleh, the head coach of the playoffcontending Jets, took a more transparent approach on the same day, when he clarified to reporters that his benching of Zach Wilson didn't signal the end of his career in New York, that the “full intent” of the
decision was to get the former No. 2 overall pick back on the field this season, and that Wilson just “needs a reset.”
The Texans quarterback's weekly media interview slot was moved from Wednesday to Friday (another telling-butface-value development that also made coach Lovie Smith's nondisclosure needless), and if it's Mills who's eventually standing behind the podium, that will provoke even more questions about the clarity of Houston's confounding process.
The persistent struggles of the 2021 thirdround pick have been well documented.
Mills has thrown for more interceptions (11) than touchdowns (nine) in his past eight starts, his 78.1 passer rating ranks 34th among all qualified quarterbacks, and his 59.8 completion percentage on Houston's cumulative opening drives this season has substantially contributed to the offense's slow
starts.
Smith said Monday “we're not pleased with where we are” and signaled a change at quarterback by saying “we will … do some things differently.” General manager Nick Caserio told a Houston radio show Wednesday morning that Mills admittedly hasn't played well and that the quarterback is “a microcosm of where we are as a team.”
The blatant shift in rhetoric by Smith, who'd been a staunch supporter of Mills, and by Caserio, whose more measured meter hadn't yet isolated Mills apart from the offense's overall issues, has been left to be interpreted as nuance, pieced together with small bits of information like Brandin Cooks practicing fully on a Wednesday when he'd normally rest, a sign that a new quarterback needed all the snaps he could get with the team's leading receiver.
The AFC East-leading Dolphins and first-year coach Mike Mcdaniel can easily interpret these tells, too.
A potent Miami passing game that ranks second in the NFL and wields both the league's leader in receiving yards (Tyreek Hill, 1,148) and the fifth-leading receiver ( Jaylen Waddle, 878) already holds a vast competitive advantage over a Houston offense that averages the league's fewest yards per drive (26).
Allen could generate more yardage with his tendency to push the ball further downfield. The four-year veteran started in 12 games for the Panthers in 2019, and his average depth of target (8.6), albeit in a different offensive system, was a full yard more than what Mills has averaged this season (7.6).
Defenses have been more regularly able to manage Houston's run game with four or five defenders while dropping a sufficient supply of defenders in pass coverage.
Hamilton said the Texans do have downfield options whenever a defense doesn't structure itself to defend the run, but he admitted “we've got to get more out of our vertical attack.”
“We're going to go out there and try and do our job no matter what, no matter who's behind the center,” said wide receiver Phillip Dorsett. “Honestly, we've just got to go out there and make plays.”