Stefon Diggs is a Houston Texan.
An otherwise ordinary Wednesday morning in April was shaken by surprising news of an NFL blockbuster as the Buffalo Bills moved on from Diggs, trading the All-Pro wide receiver to the upstart Texans. The reported details of the trade:
- Texans receive: 2024 sixth-round draft pick and a future fifth-rounder
- Bills receive: 2025 second-round
And just like that, a star receiver moves from one of the league's top offenses and elite quarterbacks to … maybe one of the league's next top offenses and emerging elite QBs?
It's easy to get very excited now about the Texans, undoubtedly one of the big winners of the offseason. But bettors should be wary of investing in Texans stock at peak value.
Is Diggs Still the Star Receiver Houston Hopes It's Getting?
The first question is whether Diggs is still a star receiver. Buffalo sure doesn't think so.
The two additional draft picks Buffalo threw into the trade shouldn't be ignored. Modern trade charts like the Fitzgerald-Spielberger suggest that the difference in value between a fifth and sixth versus a future second is minimal, effectively less than the value of any one pick. That's what Buffalo just "gained" in this deal. An argument could be made that this was a salary dump by the Bills.
Diggs turns 31 in November, and he's signed for four more years at $75 million, half of that guaranteed. And Diggs' numbers from the back half of last season paint a very grim and worrisome picture.
Over the first half of the season, he was as good as any receiver in the NFL, racking up 70 catches for 834 yards and seven touchdowns, an average line of 7.8/93/0.8 per game that put him among the favorites for Offensive Player of the Year.
But Diggs cratered over the final eight games, catching just 37 of 63 targets for a meager 349 yards and one score, an average of 4.6/44/0.1 per game. He didn't have 100 yards in a game from Oct. 15 forward and didn't do anything of note in two playoff games either, with just 73 yards combined.
Per Aaron Schatz, Diggs had a 13.9% DVOA the first half of the season with 205 DYAR before plummeting to -21.3% and -42, respectively, over the back half. You don't need to know exactly what those metrics measure to understand the dropoff the Bills front office clearly saw.
So, was Diggs injured? Was it a product of the offensive coordinator change in Buffalo? Or is the receiver on the downside of his career?
It should be worrisome to the Texans that there was a very similar trend in 2022 with Diggs. Through nine games, he posted 72 catches for 985 yards and seven scores. Over the back half of the season, he dropped to 36/444/4 — from 8.0 to 5.1 catches per game and from 109 to 63 yards — then sputtered out in two playoff games.
Once might be a fluke; twice is a pattern.
The Bills also moved on from Gabe Davis this offseason, so their current receivers are led by Khalil Shakir, Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins. We can expect plenty of two tight end sets with Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, and a big season from running back James Cook.
Buffalo has taken a step back this offseason. The defense moved on from key DB veterans Jordan Poyer, Micah Hyde and Tre'Davious White, and now the receivers have been reset, too.
Maybe the Bills will consider trading the 28th overall pick in this year's draft for Tee Higgins and get younger at the position. Or maybe this is simply the cost of Josh Allen's massive contract spiking and the team taking a slight step back for the year.
It's notable how easily Buffalo was willing to sell a supposed franchise receiver to a rising contender within the conference and leave its wide receiver room barren. That's what the team thought of Stefon Diggs.
Time to Invest in Texans Futures?
Obviously, Houston doesn't believe Diggs is badly in decline, nor are the Texans overly worried that he just pouted his way out of a second NFL franchise.
Houston believes it has a superstar young quarterback on a rookie deal for three more years in C.J. Stroud, and the Texans are going all-in.
It's hard not to get excited about the names now dotting Houston's roster.
The Texans added Joe Mixon at running back and splashed on the defensive line with the signings of Danielle Hunter and Denico Autry. They added Azeez Al-Shaair at linebacker, and now they've got Diggs, too. They were also a rumored destination for Keenan Allen, so it's clear this team went into the offseason intent on getting their young quarterback more veteran support at receiver.
But will these moves seriously move the needle for Houston?
Mixon is fine; he ranked 33rd among running backs by PFF grade and has a career 4.1 YPC playing for an elite offense with a great passing game. He's an average, aging starter with a lot of miles.
Hunter and Autry are exciting but simply take the place of the departed Jonathan Greenard, Maliek Collins, and Sheldon Rankins from what was already a good defensive line. Al-Shaair is a nice addition but the linebackers are still subpar.
This is not a championship-level defense by any stretch, and for all the excitement about the offense, the O-line still needs a ton of work. Houston has badly struggled to run the ball for years, and though Laremy Tunsil is great, an offensive line is more than one man.
There's also an interesting underlying coaching question that's about to get a lot more interesting. Not many people gave the Texans much attention for most of the season, so it's excusable if you missed OC Bobby Slowik repeatedly burying the team early in games and on early downs with a wild overcommitment to the run.
Houston ranked 25th in early down pass frequency last season to rank in the bottom quarter of the league. That mark needs to go WAY up — like in the top quarter — with Stroud throwing to Diggs, Nico Collins and Tank Dell. In theory, Diggs is a terrific complement to Collins and Dell's skillsets. He might not even end up as WR1 in the Texans' offense the way Collins played down the stretch, but that's a good problem for Houston.
Diggs is expensive and old. So is Danielle Hunter. These guys were arguably at their peak two teams ago when they both played in Minnesota. But Houston has a three-year window with a dirt-cheap franchise QB, and the Texans are investing short-term.
Still, are we sure now is the time to buy Texans stock?
Since early March, Houston's Super Bowl odds have dropped from +2500 to +1500. Their odds to win the AFC are down from +1200 to +850, and those numbers might even shorten further as bettors buy the hype. The Texans are near even odds to win the division, and Stroud is tied for third in MVP odds at FanDuel at +1000 with Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson.
Politely, those odds are ludicrous and badly overpriced.
Remember last season when everyone was really hyped about a young AFC South team with a rising star franchise QB after it added a fun toy at receiver? That was the Jacksonville Jaguars, Trevor Lawrence and Calvin Ridley. They missed the playoffs, Lawrence never even sniffed an MVP ballot despite the hype, and the Jacksonville hype created value for the rest of the division.
Now is not the time to invest in Houston Texans futures. That time was last preseason, when they were +1100 to win the division, or two weeks into an injury-plagued start when they were +2500. Bettors who invested in Texans Island a year ago are still counting their money and laughing at the folks coming a year late to the island with 10X markup on real estate.
Every island has its day.
Bettors need to get ready to SELL SELL SELL on Texans Island. The hype is already outta control.
Cash in your real estate while the gettin’s good.
— Brandon Anderson (@wheatonbrando) April 3, 2024
Buy low, sell high. That's the mantra for bettors. That should always be the motif for futures bettors.
The Texans are a little better today than they were yesterday, and they're a little better yesterday than they were at the end of the season, when they barely snuck into the playoffs after a Jaguars collapse and a Week 18 win over Gardner Minshew and the Indianapolis Colts.
That's great, and Houston will be a ton of fun to watch. It's great to see a young team be aggressive and go all-in on a short window with Stroud's rookie deal. But now is the time to sell Texans stock, not buy, and to use this offseason hype to fade the public buzz and look to invest elsewhere with your futures bets.
Texans Island, we had fun. Time to cash out in our real estate while the gettin's good.
