With more experience comes higher expectations for Davis Mills in the Texans offense.
Mills logged his first start at quarterback in Thursday night's loss to Carolina, just days after entering for Tyrod Taylor in the second half at Cleveland. With a trip to Buffalo this weekend, Head Coach David Culley said the packages from the playbook will be thicker than they were against the Panthers.
"He's going to have a lot more put on him than we put on him last week," Culley said. "I feel like he'll be able to handle that. We're just going to run our offense and let him handle it from there."
Mills completed 19-of-28 passes for 168 yards, with a touchdown and zero turnovers in his start against Carolina. With Taylor out, the Texans didn't call upon as much of the playbook with Mills as they would've with the veteran of 10 NFL seasons.
"I don't think we went in thinking 'We just want to protect him,'" Culley said of Mills. "We wanted to make sure we gave him stuff that he knew. That there was never any doubt about what he needed to do on these particular plays."
With Sunday's matchup against a Bills squad Culley described as a "playoff-caliber football team," Mills will face a mighty test. But he'll do so with a broader scope of the offense.
"Now that he's had a game-and-a-half under his belt, we'll go back to doing what we normally do," Culley said.
The Texans held a Monday walkthrough inside NRG Stadium. They'll practice Wednesday through Friday before flying to western New York on Saturday.
See the Texans at home as they host the New England Patriots on October 10th. Kickoff is set for noon CT. Click here for tickets.
