On The Move: Breaking Down Stefon Diggs on the Texans

This is normally a quieter part of the offseason in terms of movement as free agency is largely concluded, for fantasy relevant players at least, and most teams’ attention has turned to the draft. The Texans stayed busy however, trading for one of the NFL’s elite receivers, Stefon Diggs, and turning all our rankings upside down. Let’s break down whether Diggs has gained or lost value, and whether he still deserves to be in the upper echelon of an increasingly loaded position.

Diggs’ season requires a deep dive, because on the surface, his numbers were right in line with a good but not great campaign for him. His numbers were very much in line with his 2021 season, with 2020 and 2022 being volcanic eruptions. His final line – 107 receptions, 1,183 yards, eight touchdowns – are nothing to sneeze at. It’s WR1 level stuff, so why were his managers so angry?

It’s how he arrived at those numbers, because he likely cost many good teams playoff berths and/or championships. In the first nine games of the year, he was as good as ever, averaging 10.8 targets, 7.8 receptions, and 92.7 yards per game with seven touchdowns. In the final eight games, he averaged just 7.9 targets, 4.6 receptions, and 43.6 yards while scoring only one more time. That’s an extreme, precipitous drop in usage and production, and it was wholly unclear why it was occurring. Even still, it is a mystery as to why he fell off so hard and so suddenly, but there are signs that his skills are diminishing just a little bit.

Diggs graded out as PFF’s No. 21 WR, so it isn’t like he stunk, but Reception Perception’s breakdown showed that his scaled back production was largely on him. He continued to be an unguardable demon on curl routes, succeeding at an almost 90% clip, as well as slants and outs, but where he faltered just happens to be where QB Josh Allen likes to do his damage. Diggs was below league average on nine routes, corner routes and digs, while he was right around average on posts. Those are all downfield routes, where Allen loves to throw the ball, and they all signal that Diggs might be phasing into a different part of his career, a la Keenan Allen. Diggs is still so proficient on the other routes that he remains very effective, but the drop off from just last season on those deeper patterns is alarming if he’s being counted on to put an entire receiving corps on his back.

Enter the Texans. While leaving Josh Allen is typically not a positive, he goes to a team with C.J. Stroud, who emerged as an elite QB in his rookie season, and is surrounded by high-end pass-catchers. Diggs might still be capable of being a team’s No. 1, but Houston arguably has three of them, meaning none have to be the lead dog. A career-high 35% of Diggs’ routes came from the slot in 2023 – a sign the Bills noticed he wasn’t winning as much down the field – and that can easily continue in Houston with Nico Collins locked in as the X receiver, and Tank Dell capable of wreaking havoc all over the place.  Dell also averaged 15.1 yards per reception and 14.3 yard average depth of target, so if Diggs is really struggling to win on those deeper routes, he can specialize on the shorter stuff, and the routes that really require more of Diggs’ technical prowess.

For the Texans offense, it is a slam dunk, and it absolutely elevates Stroud as a potentially elite fantasy QB. For fantasy, it could mean Diggs is more inconsistent than we’ve become accustomed to. It’s impossible to know which of Houston’s big 3 receivers will take a statistical hit, but it’s likely that one does considering TE Dalton Schultz is still in the mix, and they acquired star RB Joe Mixon. Maybe this is a hot take, but as of this writing, the safest bet to me seems to be Collins, who is locked into the X role on the outside that he dominated all year. Diggs still seems to have the chops to be a full and half-PPR beast, and while he doesn’t have Collins’ size, Diggs has long been a quality receiver in short yardage/goal line scenarios with no limitations. Right now, he’d have the edge on Dell in the sense I’ll expect more week to week with the same or possibly higher ceiling. We cannot ignore that Diggs is past age 30 though, so I wouldn’t go downgrading Dell too much just yet. He’ll likely be the third best receiver on this team, but Stroud can feed a ton of mouths.