Battle Red Blog
No Houston Texans fan will ever say that Davis Mills throwing 40+ passes is the recipe for success, but that’s what was necessary to secure the win over the NFL’s worst 1-9 Tennessee Titans. Fortunately, a 10 of those 41 passes were directed towards Houston’s elite WR Nico Collins, who hauled in 9 receptions for 92 yards and a touchdown. Most recently, Mills threw only 30 passes against the Bills, but that was due to a game strategy of attacking the Bills weak run defense.
Nico Collins has seen a resurgence in production since Davis Mills took over for a concussed QB C.J. Stroud. In the seven games with Stroud at QB, Collins averaged 4.7 receptions for 59 yards on 8.14 targets. With Mills at QB the against the Titans and Jags, Collins racked up an averaged of 8 receptions for 114 yards on 12.5 targets. While it’s a smaller sample size, it’s evident that Mills has found comfort and production when throwing to the Texans’ best offensive weapon.
Collins’ performance against the Titans with Stroud illustrates a problem he’s had all season: limited route combinations. For the most part, all of these routes favor Stroud’s throwing capabilities over Collins’ route running prowess. These routes work well against zone coverage where he can find open lanes between defenders, but against man coverage, which is what a WR1 will most likely receive, they don’t get him as open. What is interesting is the lack of vertical progression. Only one target was beyond 20 yards down the field.
What’s most noticeable was the diversity of routes and positions on the field Nico caught passes. Out routes, digs, slants, curls, and posts were all in Collins’ arsenal against the Titans on Sunday. This multiplicity gave Collins the opportunity to continually surprise and confuse the Titans secondary. Sure, Nick Caley had six more weeks to integrate Collins into this brand new offense, but Collins was absolutely unleashed this past weekend.
Another interesting note is that only one pass was further than 15 yards down the field. That was the post route on third and long that allowed Houston to keep a big drive going. Mills doesn’t have the biggest arm, but he demonstrated his ability to throw it all over the field.
While Collins stats weren’t worthy of a NFL NextGen chart against the Bills as Christian Kirk earned that honor, but his three receptions for 55 yards were mainly due to Buffalo locking him down with double coverage. It was a tough game for Collins as Mills was forced to spread the ball around to Kirk and rookie WR Jayden Higgins. Houston pushed the running game against Buffalo due to their bottom-tier.
Collins’ three catches all came in the first half as Houston dove into running the ball and throwing to Higgins.
