The Texans dropped a bombshell on a sleepy offseason afternoon by trading a 2025 second-round pick for Stefon Diggs. The second-rounder comes courtesy of the Vikings, making it more valuable than Houston’s own pick. On the other hand, the Texans finessed two Day 3 picks in 2025 out of Buffalo to sweeten the deal. With ample cap space in the tank thanks to an ascending quarterback on a rookie deal, the move to acquire a superstar-level receiver to pair with the duo of Nico Collins and Tank Dell is a no-brainer.
Diggs joins the Texans coming off a down season for his lofty standards. His impressive total of 1,183 receiving yards still went down as a low-watermark for his Buffalo tenure. He also saw his yards per catch fall to 11.1 and his yard per target tumble to 7.4. The advanced metrics picked up on a similar trend. Diggs ranked 27th in yards per route run, falling below 2.49 just the second time in the past five seasons. He finished the year all the way down at 1.99 yards per route run. It’s not all doom and gloom for Diggs though. Target earning is a skill and Diggs ranked among the league’s best in that metric. He accounted for 29 percent of Josh Allen’s targets and 36 percent of his air yards in 2023. He will take that target-earning ability with him to Houston while also getting the benefit of having two receivers who can draw the attention of defenses. We’ve seen Diggs rebound from low-efficiency seasons before and his setup in Houston is the perfect opportunity to do so once again.
Though the Texans’ offense is poised to be fun beyond measure for the casual observer, it will be a frustrating knot to untangle for fantasy drafters. Collins and Dell played to a draw in terms of targets and total production when both were healthy last year.
Nico Collins and Tank Dell played seven games together where each played at least 50% of the offense's snaps:
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) March 28, 2024
Collins: 52 targets, 37-601-5
Dell: 52 targets, 35-562-6
Throughout the year, Collins had the benefit of playing without Dell more often than the other way around, but it’s impossible to ignore his stellar, 3.1 yards per route run. That mark trailed only Tyreek Hill. With Dell standing at a meager 5’8/165 and Collins playing like an alpha in 2023, Dell is the likely candidate to come off the field when Houston moves out of 11-personnel. The Texans ranked 20th in the league in 11-personnel pass rate last year. Though this will undoubtedly rise in 2024, it does put Dell at risk of losing out on a meaningful number of routes. He will remain in the middle of the WR2 heat but comes with a volatile profile. Dalton Schultz, now the fourth target on his team, will need to subsist on red zone work to survive as a touchdown-driven TE1. It hardly needs to be stated, but Stroud, hot off leading the league in passing yards per game, is poised to round out the top-five fantasy quarterbacks coming off the board in drafts this summer.
While the puzzle pieces fit together neatly on the Houston side of this deal, it’s hard to see what image the Bills are working toward on the other end of the trade. As things currently stand, Dalton Kincaid appears to be the team’s top (de facto) receiver while Khalil Shakir and Curtis Samuel, both slot specialists, are in line for prominent roles. The Bills will also add someone via the draft, likely in the first round. They hold the No. 28 overall pick in a class loaded with receiver talent. Buffalo could even justify trading up if they see a tier break at receiver before they pick. Even under the assumption they add a first-round wideout, that player won’t be able to step into Diggs’ role in 2024. On top of that, the Bills are eating an absurd dead cap hit as a result of this move.
Confirmed that the Stefon Diggs' trade will not be processed as a post-June 1 designation, so that is just over $31 million in dead cap this year.
— Alaina Getzenberg (@agetzenberg) April 3, 2024
Per @ESPNStatsInfo, this will be the highest known dead money charge for a wide receiver in any season all-time.
Tensions between Diggs and his team have been bubbling under the surface for a few years, resulting in the occasional sideline spat. As with all wide receivers, Diggs is no stranger to cryptic tweets as well. This deal could have been made, in part, to give both sides a fresh start. It is also a tremendous vote of confidence in Kincaid. The Bills struggled to find a clear role for their first-round tight end as a rookie. He only broke out when Dawson Knox was sidelined, racking up 31 catches for 281 yards and two scores in a five-game stretch that Knox missed.
The midseason breakout could have given Buffalo the confidence they needed to unleash Kincaid in 2024. For his fantasy outlook, that locks him into a top-five ranking for early fantasy drafts. The rest of the Bills’ pass-catchers are in a holding pattern. Shakir and Samuel both project to occupy the slot, likely leaving one as the odd man out. Given Samuel’s three-year, $24 million contract, he should have the inside track. Moving on from Diggs in favor of Kincaid, Samuel, and yet-to-be-named rookie may be another step in Buffalo’s effort to have Allen play slightly less hero-ball. That would play right into Samuel’s skill set as an underneath weapon. Just shy of 80 percent of Samuel’s targets came within nine yards of the line of scrimmage. Even with another face in the mix via the draft, Samuel is a sneaky winner from the Diggs trade.