Davis Mills enters the remainder of the offseason as the clear starting quarterback for the Houston Texans.

Lovie Smith spoke glowingly of Mills' play down the stretch of the 2021 season and the leadership the quarterback displayed early in the offseason, gathering teammates for workouts.

"If you look at all of my comments about Davis, I am a believer in him and what he's going to do," Smith said. "Eventually, he's got to do it all on the football field consistently where everybody loves him, every snap and all of that. Before a guy has played enough to do all of that, he shows up every day. Availability, he is available, and he has recruited other players to come here, and what the guys see him doing is just working. When I say I believe in him, (offensive coordinator) Pep Hamilton, second year in the system, all of these things. ... If you just go back and look at the plays that he made, throwing the ball downfield last year, so many good things that he did, and that's as a rookie."

"The improvement that you see from Year 1 to Year 2 is normally a big improvement, and that's what we're gonna get from him."