Davis Mills Has A Long Way To Go

It probably feels like we’ve been picking on Davis Mills here at Battle Red Blog lately. Well, it’s kinda true! I wrote something on him, and Kenneth wrote a piece on his advanced stats.

Here’s another piece on his stats, but there are two introductory aspects to this post. First, credit where it’s due, a huge thanks to BRBer verisimilitude and his running mate Meltzer. This is their baby, and I love the concept. I love it because of my portfolio management background. It’s based upon what’s called the Sharpe ratio. Here’s the Sharpe ratio in formula form:

We’re still working on the asset return and risk free return so, at its essence, we are looking at the value/standard deviation. For us, in terms of analyzing Davis MIlls, the value is the quarterback rating (QBR). The standard deviation is that of the QBR.

To break things down a bit: A high standard deviation is a bad thing. For our purposes, this is the QBR fluctuating from game to game. If, say, a player has a QBR of 23.4 in one game, then one of 141.7 in another game, that’s a high standard deviation. That’s bad. Think of it this way: Standard deviation is measurement of stability from game to game. It’s a measure of consistency. You don’t want big changes. Got it? Good.

The data here is derived from all QB play since 2019. Let’s start with a chart. Everybody loves scatterplots, right?

In this here chart, the goal is to be in the lower right hand corner. Additionally, you can see backups in red and the starters in blue.

Any idea where Davis Mills is? Let me help you out by putting Mills’ performance in context of some other quarterbacks.

#1 is the mighty Luke Falk. #2 is Justin Fields. #3 is Brandon Allen.

#4 is Davis Mills.

Look, I get it. The overall sample size is pretty small. Davis Mills’ sample size is small (TWSS?). That said, Mills both has a low QBR and is amazingly inconsistent. This is not a recipe for success. It’s Brooklyn BBQ.

Back to the chart. Who is #5? Drew Brees.

There’s one other thing to consider. In this modern era of QBs, there’s also the rushing aspect. So far, Mills is 7/8 rushing. He’s utterly worthless running the ball.

My biggest concern about Nick Caserio’s front office is that they see Davis Mills as the long-term solution. There was even this from a press conference yesterday:

Davis Mills is not that kind of guy, no matter what David Culley says. The advanced stats don’t like him. The Sharpe ratio doesn’t like him. My eyeballs don’t like him. Davis Mills has proven to be one tough dude, but so was Brock Osweiler.

Mills has a long way to go to be even mediocre. That’s a major problem for the future of this franchise. Davis Mills has not shown any indication that he is the answer at the most important position on the field. QB must be addressed early and often by Nick Caserio and the Texans in 2022. If it is not, that’s a glaring indictment of Caserio’s abilities as a GM.