The Houston Texans traded Deshaun Watson to the Cleveland Browns, which opens up the team’s need at franchise quarterback.
Although the Texans have a young signal caller with promise in Davis Mills, who enters his second season, general manager Nick Caserio wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Houston picking a quarterback in the 2022 NFL draft.
“Certainly wouldn’t jump to any conclusions; I would say specific to Davis, Davis had opportunities last year and did a nice job with those opportunities, but we’re going to start from scratch a little bit,” Caserio told reporters on March 19. “I would say when you get into the draft, you really don’t want to necessarily eliminate any position or particular player. You just want to look at it with the mentality and just figure out what makes the most sense for the organization. It’s about picking good players, it’s about picking the right players that you think fit what you’re trying to do.”
The Texans have their original selection of No. 3 overall and the Browns’ pick at No. 13 overall in Round 1. Houston would be overvaluing a pick such as Liberty’s Malik Willis with the third overall pick, but would risk the prospect going to the Carolina Panthers (No. 6 overall), Seattle Seahawks (No. 9 overall), or Washington (No. 11 overall) if those teams coveted Willis.
“We’ll look at everything, we’re knee deep in that right now and we’ll have another five or six weeks left until we get to the draft to work through that process,” said Caserio.
With regards to Mills, who the Texans picked No. 67 overall in Round 3 of last year’s draft, Caserio admitted that the Stanford product “has certainly earned an opportunity here, and that’s kind of the extent of what he’s earned.”
Said Caserio: “I think he’s excited about the chances that he has in front of him, and we’ll see how it all unfolds.”
Houston finished 4-13 last season with Mills going 2-3 in the final five games for a 2-9 record overall as a starter.
