Fantasy Football Take-Shopping: Nico Collins leads an elite Texans WR trio – but is this puzzle unsolvable?

It’s June. No one has or needs the “test answers” ​​yet – to use a silly analogy that somehow makes the unserious quest to understand and project NFL teams and players seem like a profound quest.

We are writing thoughts in pencil and just shopping for now.

This is the perfect setting to discuss one of the most difficult puzzles to solve with the current limited offseason information we have: What will the Texans’ wide receiver trio be like?

The Texans made a huge coup in this room by trading Stefon Diggs, an elite wide receiver in talent and production during his time with the Bills. That deal filled a room with a rising duo of local talent and created a packed trio.

With the well-deserved hype surrounding C.J. Stroud coming off a dynamic rookie season, people are going to want to get this Texans reception room right. As always, the key will be to isolate player talent and specific roles.

Nico Collins

The first step to properly classifying the Texans’ wide receiver room is understanding as well, Nico Collins is now.

Forget your preconceived notions about who Collins was before 2023; they probably weren’t correct, anyway. Most people label Collins as an unproductive “face-plant” receiver or a simple non-needle mover when listing Stroud’s weapons entering last season. Those who did so became obsessed with scores and statistics, never seeing a single second of Collins’ game film. When you really looked at him in isolation, you could see a lot of reps featuring a quality, smooth splitter against man and press coverage in Year 1 and Year 2 as a starting-caliber X-receiver. Wide receivers can’t just run the ball in dysfunctional offenses with bad quarterbacks like Collins faced early in his career.

He wasn’t just Stroud’s creation, and the Texans put that notion to rest by giving Collins a contract extension this offseason. Individually, Collins took his game to a new level last season.

Efficiency metrics regarding man coverage were supported on film when I mapped it to Reception Perception. Simply put, Collins performed like one of the league’s best receivers in man slot and press coverage. He mastered forward routes on basic concepts in Houston’s offense. Unlike most vertical X receivers, Collins was a YAC machine, averaging 7.0 yards after the catch per catch, fifth-most among pass catchers with at least 75 targets.

It’s a movie year, but this year was the most dominant a wideout could offer in an effort to be crowned a superstar receiver.

The fact that Collins is so good as an X-receiver is key to his 2024 projection. As a primary outside and online player, Collins rarely leaves the field. He is not a candidate to lose work or need to be bumped into favorable matchups. He can go out there and win on the perimeter against top coverage.

Based on recent film and career trajectory, Nico Collins is the best wide receiver on the Texans roster. He should be considered the favorite to be the most productive and is correctly picked first out of the three in the first best fantasy ball competitions.

Dell Tank

Not to be completely overshadowed by Collins, Tank Dell has also enjoyed some moments of high-level dynamism in 2023. As a mere rookie before his Week 13 injury, Dell was one of the league’s best receivers at creating separation and making big plays. . rupture routes in the field.

He’s not as good as Collins working the middle, but Bobby Slowik has implemented some unique route concepts to separate the two.

Dell has breathtaking game speed and can beat corners in off-man coverage. He is a deceptive runner with great pace and technique. It’s easy to see why Stroud has such an affinity for Dell’s game, because he has the confidence to destroy those vertical breakers with pinpoint accuracy. Their connection on the field is a pleasure to watch.

Dell doesn’t fit the profile of a traditional No. 1 receiver, but there is a bit of Tyreek Hill in his game. Hill didn’t play a traditional wideout role in his rookie season, but he beat man coverage at a very similar rate to Dell in Year 1 and both smaller receivers showed an ability to track the ball and win in tight coverage.

Despite his lack of size, Dell only played 29.1% of his snaps in the slot as a rookie. Perhaps the addition of Diggs will push Dell inside, but I think that would lead to him being in physical situations that could lead to injuries like the one the lanky receiver suffered last season.

You get the best of Dell as a cutting vertical outfield receiver.

Since Dell is recovering from a serious injury, I see this as a justifiable tiebreaker in ranking these guys in fantasy football. Yes, he is fully participating in the offseason, but don’t forget that Tony Pollard suffered a similar injury early last season. Pollard told me he didn’t feel well until Week 11. Dell could heat up as the year goes on and he gets further and further away from the injury. When healthy, Dell is a strong complement to Collins, even if its vertical skill set can lead to some production-based volatility.

Stefon Diggs

Anyone who knows my work with wide receivers knows my affinity with Stefon Diggs since the beginning of his NFL career. I thought Diggs was already performing in isolation at an elite level during his Vikings career, and his arrival in Buffalo with Josh Allen on the rise made that obvious to the world.

That being said, Diggs was different last season. And you can throw out the nonsense of the first half/second half split; since the first game of the season, Diggs hasn’t had the exact ability to separate on downfield routes that we’ve seen over the years. On film, he was still a quality route runner and all-around separator, especially on fast multiple-alignment routes; the vertical juice just wasn’t the same.

Diggs can still be an extremely productive and quality receiver as he ages with this skill set. This transition often comes with a change in deployment. The fact that the Texans previously tried to trade for Keenan Allen sent an instant signal after the Diggs move that they might want a receiver for the exact role the veteran might need to operate at this stage:

The Texans’ passing offense was a revelation last year, but quietly, there were problems. Houston ranked just 20th in putback success rate on third and fourth downs and 21st in EPA per putback. Some of the designer, early game, and game action concepts were excellent, but true fallback plays in critical late game situations were lacking. This is where I think Diggs comes into play.

Having a guy who can still beat man and press coverage no longer at an elite level but at a very high rate, especially on routes like slants and corners, could be key to moving the chains on these concepts. I can see Diggs being Stroud’s third answer in single coverage.

Of course, I’m speculating about this role for Diggs, but typically, a player of this archetype needs a lot of volume to be a fantasy WR1, no matter how valuable he is to your NFL offense. That’s going to be the problem for all of these players in Houston: There simply won’t be enough volume to feed any particular player every week.

All others

The fact that there is some level of “everyone else” makes Houston’s situation much harder to understand. Robert Woods is still on this roster and Noah Brown was brought back after making some big plays for this team. Recently chosen youngsters like John Metchie III and Xavier Hutchinson complete the room. That’s not to mention utility man Ben Skowronek, who the team sent a draft pick to the Rams to acquire, and starting tight end Dalton Schultz, who was signed to a three-year contract.

Schultz probably won’t match and certainly won’t exceed his 15.7% share target from last year, but he factors it into the equation. The real issue is those depth receivers. If we start to see the Woods/Brown tier of the receiver room start to take significant route share, let alone target totals on this team, it will really affect the floor and ceiling projections for the top trio.

My instinct is that Houston knows it’s on the verge of something special, with Stroud exceptionally accurate and efficient at the helm of a dynamic three-receiver room. These three players will see the vast majority of looks on this team. It’s just worth considering other scenarios, however unlikely and scary they may seem.