The Houston Texans saw one of their very own draft picks, Nico Collins, come alive in 2023 thanks to the arrival of C.J. Stroud. The first-round pick out of Ohio State came in like a house on fire and started ripping defenses to shreds with this expert marksmanship and stellar arm strength. He's anywhere from a top-five to a top-10 quarterback in the NFL already and he's played just one season. So it wasn't out of left field to suggest that Stroud was part of, if not the entire reason Collins had the season he had.
After all, Collins never looked this good when catching passes from the likes of Davis Mills. Truly elite talent generally can produce regardless of who's throwing them the ball. Other times, not so much. So when Collins broke out in 2023 and put up some eye-catching numbers, fans were a bit unsure if this was due to Collins' talent or if this was the aforementioned Stroud effect.
Well, it might be a bit of both, if we're being fair, but we're also not going to discount Collins' contributions entirely. He was three yards shy of being a 1,300-yard receiver, and that means something. He had eight touchdowns in 2023, on top of averaging over 16 yards per reception. He was incredible. Yet, he may have been even more incredible than we thought.
According to various outlets, Collins ranked eighth among all wide receivers in the fewest dropped passes per attempt in the league. All totaled, he only dropped 1.8% of all passes thrown his way. That's a better rate than Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, or Michael Pittman Jr. He's right there on the same level as Justin Jefferson, many pundits pick to be the best wide receiver in the game today.
If Collins has such sure hands, he's going to be able to prove it time and time again, as he continues to catch passes from Stroud. Considering that he just got a massive new contract, if he continues this rate of production, he's going to outperform his contract very quickly.