Who is the Houston Texans' top receiver so far this season?

Nico Collins, Tank Dell, and Noah Brown are the three men who make up the hydra of Houston Texans wide receivers. The three men who have helped rookie phenom C.J. Stroud find his way. The three men who are just as important to this offense as Stroud is. Yet, only one can be the top dog of the group, so which one would truly be the team's number one receiver?

Each man has really shown to be in consideration for the moniker of the "number one receiver", as each has really brought something unique to the table. Collins has amazing speed, while Dell has become a sure-fire route runner, and Brown, despite being the slowest of the three men, has become Stroud's favorite deep threat.

Collins has 800 yards receiving on 50 receptions, Dell has 709 receptions on 47 receptions, and Brown has 439 yards on just 21 receptions. So if we're looking at pure yards, Collins has the top marks. Yet, if we're looking at yards per reception, that goes to Brown, who is averaging nearly 21 yards per reception. However, if you're looking for the guy who crosses the endzone more times than anyone else, that's Dell, with seven touchdowns.

Dell and Collins are also tied for the most first-downs for the Texans so far, with 34, thus complicating the question even further. What's even more interesting, is that none of the three men have started 10 games yet for the Texans, according to Sports Reference. The receiver with the most starts is Robert Woods.

A receiver who isn't even up for discussion.

It's hard, nearly impossible to pick the one guy that leaps off the page, as there isn't a scientific way to really do this. Heck, Collins and Dell are even pretty neck and neck on PFF, with Collins pulling in an 85.7 PFF score, and Dell an 83.7 PFF score.

So it's not exactly a huge margin between the two. That said, if we had to pick one and we're assuming we do, we're going to go with Dell being the number one. So why did we pick Dell? He's doing a lot of the same things that Collins is doing but as a rookie.

Collins has had two prior seasons to get acclimated to the NFL. For Dell, he's brand new to the league and doing the damage he's doing. It's impressive.