Before diving into Fantasy analysis for each team, I'll present a brief overview containing their offensive ranks in my base line team projections as well as any notable coaching or offensive line changes. In the case of the Texans, not all that much has actually changed. The surprise AFC South winner runs it back with the coaching staff that turned this from a three-win team in 2022 to a 10-win team in 2023.

Projected Offensive Plays – (5th)

Projected Passing TDs – 30.8 (4th)

Projected Rushing TDs – 16.6 (24th)

Notable coaching changes:

• Nothing to see here!

Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik will likely get an opportunity to work as an NFL head coach sometime soon, but for 2024, he'll return to lead this awesome Texans team. Let's take a moment to quickly appreciate him.

In Slowik's first season calling plays, we saw the Texans near the top of the league in pre-snap motion. That's fantastic news for real-life and Fantasy football purposes.

Another fun note on Slowik -- his Texans led the NFL in pass attempts that targeted the deep middle of the field, according to FantasyPoints.com. And on passes targeting the intermediate or deep-middle, C.J. Stroud stood alone at the top of the NFL in passing.

You'll notice quarterbacks who play for some of the NFL's very best play-callers produced most of the top results in this metric. Stroud's ability unlocks the deep-middle area of the field, but it is Slowik who decides to design so many routes that attack that area. In this way, the Texans offense remains flexible, agile, and unpredictable. This offense is a nightmare to defend.

If making one request to Slowik, I would ask him to lean into Stroud and this awesome passing attack more on first downs. The first-down run game felt predictable at times in Slowik's first year calling plays. In 2023, the Texans had one of the lowest first-down pass rates in neutral situations. I'd love to see him join Matt LaFleur and Kyle Shanahan above the trend line below.

Notable offensive line changes

• Drafted tackle Blake Fisher in Round 2

This offensive line is stocked full of talent, health is the only concern. Three of five starters carry Round 1 NFL Draft pedigree, and the two non-first-rounders are Juice Scruggs (Round 2 pick in 2023) and Shaq Mason (five separate seasons with a PFF blocking grade of 80+). So many different linemen were forced into action for this team in 2023 that the Texans now boast unique experience among the depth pieces. Add Round 2 selection Blake Fisher to the equation, and this is one of the deepest and most well-rounded offensive lines heading into 2024. We'll see how long it remains intact!

Two-high safety coverages do not work on this Texans offense. Between Stroud's ability to cover every blade of grass with his arm range, offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik's ability to layer downfield route designs that stretch opposing defenses to the breaking point, and Nico Collins' and Tank Dell's ability to create space against any type of coverage, defensive play-callers were at a loss when trying to find answers against Houston. Add Stefon Diggs to the equation, give Slowik, Stroud, Collins, and Dell another year of familiarity with each other, and throw in the possibility of better offensive line health and an improved run game, and this just may be the single most deadly offense in 2024. My projections have only Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Dak Prescott passing for more touchdowns than Stroud.

And really, it wouldn't take much to push Stroud into the same range and even past those guys when it comes to passing touchdowns. Texans playcalling could lean more pass-heavy when in scoring distance during Stroud's second season.

The offensive line is the most likely key to unlocking this offense's full potential. When pressured, Stroud ranked seventh in passer rating (77.2). When not pressured, he ranked fourth in passer rating (110.6). Stroud's 8.8-yard average depth of target when not pressured was the highest in the league among passers with 300+ dropbacks. Collins and Dell were the direct beneficiaries of non-pressured dropbacks. 

Nico Collins splits when Stroud was pressured/not pressured in 2023:

Target per route run rate

30.3% -- no pressure
18.5% -- pressure

Yards per route run

3.73 -- no pressure
1.97 -- pressure

Fantasy points per target

2.46 -- no pressure
2.17 -- pressure

Tank Dell splits when Stroud was pressured/not pressured in 2023:

Target per route run rate

27.1% -- no pressure
16.5% -- pressure

Yards per route run

2.73 -- no pressure
1.24 -- pressure

Fantasy points per target

2.29 -- no pressure
1.92 -- pressure

When Stroud was pressured, he took shorter throws. Dalton Schultz saw a boost in targets when Stroud was pressured. So did Devin Singletary. Stroud leaned on his safety valves when he felt pressure. With better offensive line health in 2024, we could see Stroud feed even more downfield looks to his deadly perimeter pairing.

I adore Tank Dell. He is a bad man, and defenders are liable to look silly any time they line up opposite the explosive 5-foot-10 165-pound ankle-breaker. Dell is always open. He's so fun to watch.

He is not this team's WR1. Many metrics will depict Dell as a 1B to Collins as 1A. Dell is so dope, you will never hear me slander this man. But make no mistake about who the top receiver on this team is. It's not Stefon Diggs either.

What Collins accomplished in 2023 put him in historic company.

What's so special about Collins' absurd per-route efficiency is that it came even while running the majority of his routes with three or more receivers on the field. There's a lot of nuance that is relevant when considering per-route data, including the fact that the number of receivers on the field affects the data in a meaningful way.

For example, Brandon Aiyuk's yard per route run rate dropped dramatically when filtering to only include plays with three or more receivers. Collins' data within that split still stood up next to the absolute best to do it over the past 10 years.

Below you'll find an even more obscure note that paints Collins as a transcendent talent. I particularly like this one because it relates only to Collins' ability to demand targets. Collins is going to jump off the page when examining just about any yardage-based metric. His combination of downfield route running and yardage after the catch creation made him one of the most efficient yardage producers in recent memory. We can't take that away from him, but YAC can be somewhat unpredictable on a year-to-year basis. I like this stat because it's solely a reflection of Collins' ability to get open and draw targets in a way that is unique for a true perimeter-stretching "X" receiver.

Below is a conversation that I had with Ryan Heath of FantasyPoints.com. If you read the New York Jets team preview, you may remember me referencing this conversation as it related to Garrett Wilson perpetually underperforming when it came to targets per route run. Ryan suggested that as a general rule, most "X" receivers -- the guys who line up isolated on the "weak" side of the formation and face opposing top cornerbacks the most often -- will tend to produce a lower target per route run rate than first-read target rate. That has not been the case for Nico Collins.

He is the best.

Stefon Diggs' ESPN Open Score as a member of the Buffalo Bills:

2020 - 84
2021 - 93
2022 - 83
2023 - 69

Stefon Diggs' PFF receiving grade as a member of the Buffalo Bills:

2020 - 90.6
2021 - 81.9
2022 - 89.0
2023 - 79.0

His per-route rates against man coverage have been on the decline as well, as has his data against press coverage:

Meanwhile, Nico Collins was the best press coverage producer on perimeter routes in 2023. Tank Dell wasn't quite as productive, but his data came on an extremely small sample size. I turned to Matt Harmon's work on ReceptionPerception.com, then, to get a better idea of how Dell performed against press coverage as a rookie. Here's what Matt had to say:

"Dell is able to thrive as an outside receiver and was able to do so right away because he could beat man coverage. His 72.8% success rate vs. man coverage is a strong score. He only saw press coverage on 8.3% of his sample routes – the Texans did a lot of work to protect and shield him from press, as they should – but he still turned in a rock-solid 68.2% success rate. Remember, Dell's 83rd percentile success rate vs. press was the most encouraging part of his prospect profile. Throw out the frame, Dell plays tough off the line and is a technically sound player."

Read the Houston Texans WR Reception Perception profiles here:

Tank Dell RP Profile
Nico Collins RP Profile
Stefon Diggs RP Profile

If you read the Diggs profile, you'll find that Matt came to a similar conclusion that I had when digging into the data on Diggs. I believe at this point in his career, Diggs would be best suited as a slot player. And especially on a team that had massive success with Dell (23% slot rate) and Collins (17.6%) operating almost exclusively from the outside, it makes sense intuitively to put Diggs on the inside.

The slot was not an area of emphasis for this team in 2023. Maybe that changes with Diggs added to the equation.

From my perspective, Diggs doesn't come remotely close to Collins when forming a Fantasy projection. I have Dell projected to play 14 games to Diggs' 15.5, which results in a closer median outcome for those two. But purely from an upside projection standpoint, Dell's top ranges of outcomes blow Diggs out of the water. I'm thoroughly perplexed by Diggs' average draft position. He's been reliant on top-of-the-league target volume to produce elite Fantasy results and now is facing the most target competition of any season of his career. If Stroud does put up MVP numbers, it's possible that Diggs could be a big part of that and be a productive Fantasy player, but his most likely outcome is to be a boom-bust producer who is reliant on finding the end zone.

Joe Mixon was the RB5 in expected Fantasy points per game in 2023, according to the FantasyPoints Data Suite's model. The Texans removed Dameon Pierce from the picture and handed over primary backfield duties to Devin Singletary in Week 9, and from that point on, Singletary ranked as the RB18 in expected Fantasy points per game. Mixon's role in Houston will likely not be as Fantasy-friendly as the one that he filled for the Bengals.

Two primary factors fueled Mixon's top-five expected Fantasy point-per-game average -- receiving and red zone involvement.

Only Christian McCaffrey and Kyren Williams accounted for a higher percentage of their team's red zone opportunities in healthy games than Mixon with the Bengals.

Singletary's rate from Week 9 on was 29%. That's not bad! But it's nowhere near Mixon's 47% mark.

Mixon's involvement in the red zone will likely come down from what we've seen in the past, and I suspect that his receiving involvement may as well. Singletary registered a 6.5% target share from Week 9 on, Mixon's target share has been 11% or higher in each of the past two seasons.

Stroud only sent 12.8% of his targets to the RB position, down from the league average of 17.8%. Among qualified passers, only Matthew Stafford targeted the RB position at a lower rate than Stroud.

Mixon is leaving the board as the RB14 on average, which is way too rich for me. Singletary was the RB21 on a per-game basis upon taking over as the primary back for Houston. Do we have any evidence that Mixon is better than Singletary?

Mixon was one of the league's worst in almost any efficiency metric.

Goal line success is what Mixon drafters will be banking on. Singletary was better than Mixon in every one of the metrics listed above (even while not being particularly good in any of them), with goal line success rate being the lone exception. Singletary ranked 28th in goal line success rate. Mixon will be a slight upgrade there.

One final note -- Mixon has been much better as a shotgun rusher than on plays with the QB under center. That's not a good fit with how Houston's offense operated in 2023.

If the Texans produce the league's top-scoring offense, then sure, Mixon could be a Fantasy value. His projection is extremely underwhelming given the lack of receiving involvement. His workload will mostly be rush attempts, and Mixon has established himself as one of the NFL's least efficient rushers. He has to score an outlier type of touchdown total to matter for Fantasy. The more-likely outcome seems to be Mixon resembling what we saw from Singletary (RB21 per-game) in this role in 2023.

I'll be back in your inbox every weekday with a new team preview during the month of July! Thursday, we will be covering the Jacksonville Jaguars. If you have any feedback on the team-by-team previews or any questions about the upcoming teams, feel free to send them my way.