Unpacking Davis Mills: Analyzing the Rookie Quarterback's Performance and Potential

Our perspective on rookie Davis Mills from 2021.

Davis MIills quarterback out of Stanford. Mills is 6'3 217 pounds and was a five-star recruit out of high school. Apparently, Mills was the number one pro-style passer coming out of high school, and Stanford runs a pro-style. Experience in those systems is important from a football IQ standpoint. He also attended Stanford, so you should be relatively intelligent in general.

"When we get to this tier of quarterbacks, he is the top guy."

Mills does come with some injury history to his left knee. Davis Mills suffered a left knee injury before his high school senior year in 2016. Surgery was required to repair his knee, and then he reinjured the knee in the 2016 state title game. Mills suffered another setback during his redshirt freshman season. Davis sat out spring practice in 2018 and wore a bulky brace on his left knee throughout college. It almost seems that he got rushed out a little bit in high school, and it carried over a little bit into college.

Davis Mills has a smooth delivery, setup and throws a very tight spiral. Davis posses good touch and can put the ball over the defender. He has decent mobility, but he isn't going to blow the doors off anybody, but he could get out of a few tackles. He likes to throw over the middle, which is probably not something he's going to want to do a whole lot in the NFL. Occasionally Mills got stuck on his main read and then made some bad decisions when flustered or pressured in the pocket.

Scouting Report

One of the biggest concerns is that he only had 11 career starts in college, but when we talk about Zack Wilson and Trey Lance, they also only really have one year of starts. Mills just doesn't necessarily have all the raw athletic stuff that some of these other guys are known for at this stage. When we get to this tier of quarterbacks, he is the top guy. We don't necessarily believe in player comps, but it always sticks out a little bit when you're compared to Mitch Trubisky. Davis Mills is probably a third-round pick in a Superflex rookie draft and a quarterback nobody really cares about in a one-quarterback league.