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With free agency slowing down and the NFL draft wrapped up, a lot of the moving pieces have settled, and we now have a number of teams with a logjam of talent. I wanted to take an in-depth look at some of these position groups and try to determine how to navigate them this coming season. This week, I’ll be starting with the Houston Texans receiver group. Let me know how you think this position group will pan out, and reach out to me at @backseatscout on Twitter/X or u/backseatscout on Reddit if there are any position groups you want to be tackled next.
The Houston Texans already had a good group of receivers last year with Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Robert Woods then decided they wanted to further upgrade the unit by adding Stefon Diggs to the team. This is fantastic for up-and-coming quarterback, CJ Stroud, but there was already a debate of which of Collins and Dell should be the receiver to have for 2024. With Diggs in the mix, their receiver room quickly became one of the trickiest groups to navigate.
Recent History of Productive Three Wide Receivers on the Same Team
Before getting too much into the Texans’ players, I think it’s good to look back at the past few years to get an idea of how much production can be shared among three receivers. Looking back at the past five years, the only examples I could find of three receivers on the same team all finishing at least at 32nd best in points/game for PPR formats were Chris Godwin/Mike Evans/Antonio Brown from 2021 and 2020, weirdly Curtis Samuel/DJ Moore/Robby Anderson in 2020, and Cooper Kupp/Robert Woods/Brandin Cooks in 2018.
If we extend that to include tight ends, we can then include Deebo Samuel/Brandon Aiyuk/George Kittle from 2022, Julio Jones/Calvin Ridley/Austin Hooper in 2019, and even Chris Godwin/Mike Evans/Antonio Brown/Rob Gronkowski from 2021.
The results were a bit all over the place, with some cases where there were multiple players capable of finishing as WR1s, such as Chris Godwin/Mike Evans/Antonio Brown/Robert Gronkowski in 2021, with Godwin finishing with the 9th highest average, Brown with the 10th highest, and Evans with the 14th highest average. However, this was the year the Buccaneers broke the record for the number of pass attempts in a season, and Brown also missed a large chunk of the season, which helped bring up the scores of Godwin, Evans, and Gronkowski. Outside of that case, the only other time there was a case where a player had a WR1 finish was for the Julio Jones/Calvin Ridley/Austin Hooper group, with Julio finishing as the WR3 in points/game.
So, while there is recent history of three pass catchers showing it’s possible, it’s not quite the ceiling most would probably hope for. Volume and injuries definitely affected these numbers, but we typically had a couple of receivers finish as WR2s and one often finished as a WR3 in most cases. This means that we might be able to trust two of Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Stefon Diggs, but one may be a bit of a trap.
CJ Stroud
Before we get to the receivers, let’s talk a bit about CJ Stroud. Last year, Stroud showed why many had him as the top quarterback of the 2023 draft by putting up 4108 yards and 23 touchdowns in just 15 games. We could expect the Texans to put the ball in Stroud’s hand even more as he enters his second year, and some optimists could even suggest that we could see the type of passing volume Tom Brady had in 2021 to justify all receivers being strong fantasy players this year. However, when I looked back at some of the previous top rookie quarterbacks who had strong rookie seasons, the consistent trend was the opposite actually occurred.
Looking back at the past ten years and comparing several young quarterbacks first year as a starter to their second year as a starter, Trevor Lawrence, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Carson Wentz, Teddy Bridgewater, and Derek Carr all saw a decrease in passing attempts/game. Also, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, Josh Allen, and Marcus Mariota all had about the same number of pass attempts/game.
The only quarterbacks that I could find that had an increase in attempts/game were Lamar Jackson (who decreased his rushing attempts to convert more opportunities to passing opportunities), Jared Goff (who saw an increase with the change from Jeff Fisher to Sean McVay), Jameis Winston (who saw a small increase with the change from Lovie Smith to Dirk Koetter), Mitchell Trubisky (couldn’t find a clear reason other than being trusted more), and Blake Bortles (same as Trubisky). With no coordinator change and CJ Stroud not being much of a rusher last year, Trubisky and Bortles are the best examples of Stroud getting more passing opportunities next year.
So, only five out of twenty and only two of those five fit CJ Stroud’s situation, projecting Stroud to likely either not see an increase in passing attempts or could even see it drop. That might sound bleak with Stefon Diggs coming into the mix, but the biggest thing that second-year quarterbacks show is much improved efficiency. So, while Stroud may not have increased volume, I would expect him to be able to complete a higher number of passes, get his receivers more yards, and lead them to the end zone more consistently.
Stefon Diggs
With the expectation of likely similar targets to go around the team, we can take a look at how the targets shook out last year with no significant vacated targets and how the skill positions are staying intact outside of swapping Devin Singletary for Joe Mixon. Nico Collins led the team in target/game and % of snaps with a target with Tank Dell directly behind him. Robert Woods actually tied Dell in targets last year but also played more games than Dell. Dalton Schultz and Noah Brown were major parts of the offense, contributing with 88 targets and 55 targets, respectively.
With Stefon Diggs coming into the mix and playing more snaps from the slot last year than he ever has done during his time in Buffalo, I would expect him to be the primary slot receiver, with Nico Collins playing the X and Tank Dell playing the Z. This would likely push Robert Woods, Noah Brown, and John Metchie off the field more times than not and vacate a lot of their collective 160 targets from last year. Also, though Dalton Schultz just got an extension, I think he will have Diggs cut into his share with the overlap of slot and tight-end routes.
Stefon Diggs has been a target machine since he came to Buffalo, but if we are conservative and assume a 25% reduction in targets as he adjusts to a new quarterback and other competing targets, that would take him down from his season average of 9.8 targets/game in Buffalo to 7.3 targets/game which would equal out to about 124 targets across the whole season. I actually think this mark is relatively realistic, with Diggs pushing Robert Woods, Noah Brown, and John Metchie off the field and the assumption that he takes a conservative 60% of their target (~100 targets). Also, with Diggs likely cutting into Schultz’s production, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to take at least 20 targets from Schultz.
Nico Collins and Tank Dell
So, if Nico Collins and Tank Dell get absolutely no additional targets this season, it could be easy to envision the targets shaking out this way. However, this isn’t usually the case. Collins has been an ascending player who has struggled with health and finally put up a career year when he finally had a good quarterback throwing him the ball. Dell came out fast and showed great chemistry with Stroud.
Tank Dell started and finished strong with some bumps in-between and finished with 17.3 points/game in games where Dell and Nico Collins played together, removing the Falcons game when he left early with an injury, which would have been the 8th-highest scoring receiver had he finished the whole year with that pace. His points scored each week fluctuated with a standard deviation of 10.59. Dell also found the end zone in five of his eight games, which they both played the entirety of.
Dell also had about 15% of his receptions caught twenty yards from the line of scrimmage, about 38% between ten and nineteen yards, about 45% between zero and nine yards, and about 1% behind the line of scrimmage. Also, receivers tend to make a good jump from year one to year two, so it’s reasonable to expect more from Dell in year two.
Tank Dell’s instant impact and highlights made some people say that Nico Collins was second fiddle to Dell, but Collins actually finished at least tied for targets in five out of nine full games that Dell and Collins played together compared to Dell’s three. Also, Collins had a higher reception % per target of 73% compared to Dell’s 63% and more yards/reception with 16.2 yards/reception compared to Dell’s 15.1. In terms of PPR finishes, Collins finished with 17.6 points/game in games he and Dell played together, which basically would have made him tied with Dell with a standard deviation of 10.46 in these games, and found the end zone in four of his eight games that they both played together. Collins had about 16% of his receptions caught 20 yards from the line of scrimmage, about 24% between 10 and 19 yards, about 37% between 0 and 9 yards, and about 22% behind the line of scrimmage.
So, it gets messier when we compare the numbers of Collins and Dell, as both look to have big ranges of outcomes, similar points per game, and touchdown rates that are close enough that we could consider the slight edge to Collins a coincidence. Where I think we can have some takeaways is Collins got a lot of his production behind the sticks while Dell was getting slightly over half of his production 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Where this becomes important is, one, the addition of Diggs, who will likely take a bit into these underneath routes from Collins, and two, how second-year quarterbacks typically become more efficient getting the ball downfield.
Conclusion
So, if you are looking at the receiver room and want to know the safest option, I would say Stefon Diggs would be the safest option for PPR leagues and should be the safe bet to be one of the WR2s on the team. Tank Dell provides the most upside for big weeks with his ability to win downfield, the expected year two jump, and the likelihood that CJ Stroud becomes a more efficient downfield passer in year two, which makes him another strong candidate to finish as a WR2 this coming year and a good play for best-ball leagues.
Nico Collins is left as kind of the odd man out as he will likely get his target share dropped with Diggs’ arrival. However, I would expect Collins’ efficiency to continue, so while he may have a lowered ceiling from a volume perspective, he should still have a solid floor as a high-end WR3 with some WR2 and potentially even WR1 finishes in the season.
