With the 2022 NFL Draft just around the corner, we'll take a look at how the Texans draft last year took shape. The 2021 draft saw the Texans without a 1st or 2nd round pick. It was GM Nick Caserio's 1st draft with the Texans. With the shape the Texans were in, and the ton of things the Texans needed, Caserio took an already limited draft and made it even more limited by trading away picks to move up in the draft, instead of trading back to gather more picks for the tons of stuff they needed.
We'll start with the 1st selection last year, 3rd pick of the 3rd round, QB Davis Mills. Mills was forced to start his NFL career in the 2nd game of the season when starter Tyrod Taylor went down with a hamstring injury that kept him out of action for 6 weeks. The rookie Mills was forced into the starters role, and it wasn't too pretty. Mills did complete 69.1% of his passes in those 1st 6 starts, but a ton of it was short passes, 6.5 Y/A, and there was quite a bit of garbage time. Mills had 6 TD and 7 INT in those 6 starts, with an 83.6 passer rating. The Texans averaged 10.1 points per game, and were held to single digits in 4 of his 6 starts.
The Texans 2nd selection last year was WR Nico Collins. The Texans traded 3 picks, including a 4th rounder this year, to move up into the 3rd round to get Collins. Collins missed his senior season because he opted out because of Covid, so by the time he took the field for the 1st time for the Texans, he hadn't played organized football in almost 2 years. I think that showed in his play for the Texans this past season. Collins had just 33 catches for 446 yards in his rookie campaign. He didn't get his 1st NFL TD until week 16, and it was the only one he had. Collins game highs were 5 catches for 69 yards in a week 14 game against Seattle. Whether by design or not, that was just 1 of 3 games where Collins had more than 3 catches in a game. And for having a QB with a fairly high completion percentage, as Mills did, Collins catch rate was just 54%. Out of 208 NFL players in 2021 with 30 or more targets, Collins catch rate was 199th out of those 208. I don't think that opt out year did him any favors.
A new regime didn't stop the Texans from doing something they seem to do almost every single draft, and that's select a TE. Brevin Jordan was taken in the 5th round. He's the 4th TE drafted by the Texans since 2018. And 2 of those 4 are no longer on the team, including a 3rd round pick in 2019. Jordan didn't even suit up the 1st 7 weeks of the season. It wasn't until 3rd rounder in 2018, Jordan Akins, started getting phased out that Brevin Jordan started seeing playing time. Of course the Texans offense doesn't do a very good job of utilizing and incorporating their TEs into the offense, but that doesn't stop them from drafting them. Jordan made his NFL debut in week 8, catching his 1st NFL TD in that debut. In the 9 games that Jordan ended up playing in, he had 20 catches for 178 yards and 3 TD. That's just an average of 2.2 catches and 19.7 yards per game. That includes just 1 catch for 9 yards in the last 2 games of the season. Again, the Texans like drafting TEs, but they don't seem to understand their roles on offense.
This was the big head scratcher when it happened. The Texans traded up TWICE to select a player in the 5TH ROUND!! That player was LB Garret Wallow. Wallow saw most of his playing time on special teams. In fact, he played 15 snaps on defense the 1st 12 weeks of the season, 0 snaps from weeks 6-12. The only time Wallow saw significant snaps on defense was when the Texans were hurting at LB because of Covid and/or injuries. Wallow played over 80% of the snaps in 2 games in weeks 15 and 16, but finished with just 9 snaps combined in the last 2 games. Wallow saw 180 snaps in the 10 games he was in on defense, 117 of those came in weeks 15 and 16. Wallow ends his rookie campaign with 15 tackles, 2 tackles for loss and 1 sack.
And finally was 6th round DT Roy Lopez. Lopez actually started 15 games this past season, which for a 6th rounder was pretty impressive. Lopez only played 46% of the defensive snaps though. So though he started games, he was pretty much a rotational guy. Still, for a 6th round pick, not bad. But is he that much of a factor because of the Texans lack of talent, or is he actually a pretty good player? I guess that's still to be determined. Lopez had just 20 solo tackles, 5 tackles for loss and 1 sack, but he also had 7 missed tackles. His missed tackle percentage of 18.4% was tied for the 13th highest in the NFL. So I'm not sure Lopez sees many snaps on any other team, but he did have some impact on this Texans squad, lack of talent or not.
With their 1st pick, which was the 3rd pick of the 3rd round, they used it on a QB. Yes, with the Deshaun Watson situation, QB was a need, but it's hard enough for 1st round QBs to make it in this league. Even more so for 3rd rounders and beyond, especially on a team with virtually no playmakers on it. The Texans also traded away 3 picks, including 1 this year, to grab a WR who opted out of the 2020 season because of Covid. And then they gave up picks to move up twice to draft a player in the 5TH round.
The grades I give immediately following a draft have more to do with strategy and value than the players themselves, because the players have yet to play a single down of NFL football. And because of the way Caserio navigated last year's draft, I gave them a grade of "D".
Fast forward a year, where these draft picks have had a full season to play the NFL game, we can focus more on the players themselves. Really still too early to make any kind of judgements, but just a glimpse of what was, based on actual on field performance.
We'll start with the 1st selection last year, 3rd pick of the 3rd round, QB Davis Mills. Mills was forced to start his NFL career in the 2nd game of the season when starter Tyrod Taylor went down with a hamstring injury that kept him out of action for 6 weeks. The rookie Mills was forced into the starters role, and it wasn't too pretty. Mills did complete 69.1% of his passes in those 1st 6 starts, but a ton of it was short passes, 6.5 Y/A, and there was quite a bit of garbage time. Mills had 6 TD and 7 INT in those 6 starts, with an 83.6 passer rating. The Texans averaged 10.1 points per game, and were held to single digits in 4 of his 6 starts.
Tyrod Taylor came back for all of 4 games before he got injured again, and Mills closed out the final 5 games of the season. Things looked a little bit different in Mills 2nd stint. For the final 5 games Mills completed 68.4% of his passes, had 7.3 Y/A, with 9 TD and just 2 INT for a passer rating of 102.4. And more importantly, the Texans averaged 23.2 points per game. Mills finished his rookie campaign completing 66.7% of his passes, had 16 TD and 10 INT with an 88.8 passer rating. Mills total impact on games was fairly low though as his 35.6 true QB rating would indicate. A 50 is average impact. Mills was also night and day home and road. At home Mills looked like he belonged in the Pro Bowl. 69.7% completions, 12 TD and just 1 INT with a 109.5 passer rating. On the road he looked really, really bad. 63.1% completions, 4 TD, 9 INT with a 63.1 passer rating.
The Texans 2nd selection last year was WR Nico Collins. The Texans traded 3 picks, including a 4th rounder this year, to move up into the 3rd round to get Collins. Collins missed his senior season because he opted out because of Covid, so by the time he took the field for the 1st time for the Texans, he hadn't played organized football in almost 2 years. I think that showed in his play for the Texans this past season. Collins had just 33 catches for 446 yards in his rookie campaign. He didn't get his 1st NFL TD until week 16, and it was the only one he had. Collins game highs were 5 catches for 69 yards in a week 14 game against Seattle. Whether by design or not, that was just 1 of 3 games where Collins had more than 3 catches in a game. And for having a QB with a fairly high completion percentage, as Mills did, Collins catch rate was just 54%. Out of 208 NFL players in 2021 with 30 or more targets, Collins catch rate was 199th out of those 208. I don't think that opt out year did him any favors.
A new regime didn't stop the Texans from doing something they seem to do almost every single draft, and that's select a TE. Brevin Jordan was taken in the 5th round. He's the 4th TE drafted by the Texans since 2018. And 2 of those 4 are no longer on the team, including a 3rd round pick in 2019. Jordan didn't even suit up the 1st 7 weeks of the season. It wasn't until 3rd rounder in 2018, Jordan Akins, started getting phased out that Brevin Jordan started seeing playing time. Of course the Texans offense doesn't do a very good job of utilizing and incorporating their TEs into the offense, but that doesn't stop them from drafting them. Jordan made his NFL debut in week 8, catching his 1st NFL TD in that debut. In the 9 games that Jordan ended up playing in, he had 20 catches for 178 yards and 3 TD. That's just an average of 2.2 catches and 19.7 yards per game. That includes just 1 catch for 9 yards in the last 2 games of the season. Again, the Texans like drafting TEs, but they don't seem to understand their roles on offense.
This was the big head scratcher when it happened. The Texans traded up TWICE to select a player in the 5TH ROUND!! That player was LB Garret Wallow. Wallow saw most of his playing time on special teams. In fact, he played 15 snaps on defense the 1st 12 weeks of the season, 0 snaps from weeks 6-12. The only time Wallow saw significant snaps on defense was when the Texans were hurting at LB because of Covid and/or injuries. Wallow played over 80% of the snaps in 2 games in weeks 15 and 16, but finished with just 9 snaps combined in the last 2 games. Wallow saw 180 snaps in the 10 games he was in on defense, 117 of those came in weeks 15 and 16. Wallow ends his rookie campaign with 15 tackles, 2 tackles for loss and 1 sack.
And finally was 6th round DT Roy Lopez. Lopez actually started 15 games this past season, which for a 6th rounder was pretty impressive. Lopez only played 46% of the defensive snaps though. So though he started games, he was pretty much a rotational guy. Still, for a 6th round pick, not bad. But is he that much of a factor because of the Texans lack of talent, or is he actually a pretty good player? I guess that's still to be determined. Lopez had just 20 solo tackles, 5 tackles for loss and 1 sack, but he also had 7 missed tackles. His missed tackle percentage of 18.4% was tied for the 13th highest in the NFL. So I'm not sure Lopez sees many snaps on any other team, but he did have some impact on this Texans squad, lack of talent or not.
Immediately following last year's draft, I gave the Texans a "D" based on their value and execution of the draft. The players themselves can't effect how the Texans saw their value, nor do they have any effect on how the Texans executed the draft to select those players. The players do however, play a role in validating what the Texans saw in them, to do the things they did to make the Texans take them where they did.
Even though I thought taking a QB with the limited picks they had, and starting in the 3rd round, on top of the lack of experience Mills had in college having started just 11 games in his 4 year college career, was a very questionable move. Mills, forced into action early, ended up having a somewhat decent season. In fact, his stats will show he was better than the top 2 overall picks in last year's draft, Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson. And it's not even close. If Mills continues to grow and progress, that alone would boost this draft grade substantially. We'll see how year 2 goes where defenses will have a lot more film on him. Plenty of QBs that start out alright, fade into obscurity. And Mills also has to deal with a new HC and OC.
For what the Texans gave up to get Nico Collins, that hasn't turned out very well so far. Collins has got a LOT of work to do to make this pick worth it. Maybe finally getting rid of the Bill O'Brien/Tim Kelly offense will help.
Maybe getting rid of the O'Brien/Kelly offense will get the Texans TEs more involved as well. I think the potential is there for Brevin Jordan, he just needs to be in an offense that doesn't forget they have TEs on the roster and that they're allowed to catch passes.
For what the Texans gave up to get a 5th rounder, Garret Wallow is going to have to make some significant strides. But that won't happen if he can't even get on the field on a defense that was pretty bad last year.
As for Roy Lopez, again, having a 6th rounder contribute like he did, regardless of the talent around him, is a positive. His missed tackles are a concern though.
Keep in mind that these grades are only for what has happened in the past year and can change in the future if these players grow and improve. So taking the player's performances this past season, on top of the value and execution of the draft, all into account, my 1st year grade for the Texans 2021 draft is:
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