Heading into the 2024 NFL season, it appeared as if the Houston Texans had a legitimate Big Three within their wide receiver room, with Nico Collins, Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell making up one of the league's best pass-catching trios. But by the time the 2025 season arrived, only one of those three players would be catching passes for the Texans this year.
With Stefon Diggs in New England and Tank Dell sidelined following a late December knee injury, it left Collins, veteran free agent signing Christian Kirk, and a cast of young and unproven pass-catchers to do the lifting in Houston's passing offense.
Fortunately for the Texans, two of those young and unproven pass-catchers have proven at least a little something throughout the year. In time, Jaylin Noel could materialize into a reliable slot receiver. Someone who hopefully you could pencil in for somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 to 700 yards each season. But his former Iowa State teammate, fellow Texans rookie Jayden Higgins, has shown to have even higher upside.
Despite the fact that there is some skillset overlap between Higgins and Nico Collins, the rookie wideout is making his presence felt in H-Town. On the season, Higgins has caught 27 passes for 294 yards and 4 touchdowns, but over the last three weeks specifically, Higgins' number has started being called upon even more frequently. As a result, Matthew Berry, Jay Croucher and Connor Rodgers of Fantasy Football Happy Hour devoted some time to the promising rookie.
"Nine targets in Week 12," Rodgers noted of Higgins, who caught four of those targets for 34 yards and a red zone touchdown. "Jayden Higgins is officially involved and has legit red zone ability with his size."
Standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 214 lbs., Higgins certainly is a big target down in the scoring area. The question is whether he'll remain a preferred target of CJ Stroud, or as Jay Croucher put it, if Higgins is, "a Davis Mills merchant."
Although Croucher clarified he believes that everyone in the Texans lineup will benefit from Stroud being back, it is worth noting that 23 of Jayden Higgins' 45 targets during the 2025 season have come in the three games that Davis Mills has been under center for the Texans.
As for the comparisons to Nico Collins, it will take some time before Jayden Higgins gets to that level of production, but it is worth mentioning that Higgins is on pace to have a more productive year than the Texans leading receiver did during his rookie season.