Photo by Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images Stefon Diggs has been a productive veteran receiver, but I wonder if the Texans end up regretting this. On Wednesday, the Houston Texans acquired star wide receiver Stefon Diggs from the Buffalo Bills for a 2025 second-round pick. People are piling on the Bills, who will take an unprecedented dead cap hit to clear what they still owe of Diggs’ salary while only landing a future second, but I’d be wary of giving too much praise to the Texans. Houston has done an excellent job, between getting their franchise quarterback in CJ Stroud and finding some outstanding young receivers for him in Tank Dell and Nico Collins. They turned their franchise around and became major contenders lightning fast, and they’ve done so through youth. Diggs is unquestionably talented. He’s been one of the NFL’s best over his career, and there’s a good chance he’s still a high-level contributor. That said, there have been some rumblings about his locker room presence, this will be his age 31 season, and the Texans are going to pay him $19 million for 2024. Teams love to add that one extra piece to put them over the top, and maybe Diggs will be that. And it’s not as if the risk is that high, as he will only be around for one year should things go south. That said, I’m not sure that giving huge money to veteran receivers – even good ones – is a great investment. There has been a sea change in college receiver development. A decade ago it was exceedingly rare to see rookie receivers make an immediate impact on a team. Over the past several seasons, it has become the norm. From the five year period from =gt&cval[1]=640&cstat[1]=rec_yds&season_end=1]2014-2018, only 12 rookie receivers eclipsed 800 yards in their inaugural season, and five — Odell Beckham, Michael Thomas, Amari Cooper, Mike Evans, and Kelvin Benjamin — broke 1,000. From =gt&cval[1]=800&cstat[1]=rec_yds&season_end=1]2019 through 2023, 23 receivers eclipsed the 800-yard mark as rookies, with Puka Nacua, Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Garrett Wilson, AJ Brown, Chris Olave, Kyle Pitts, and Jayden Waddle (a total of 8) all breaking 1,000. There is of course the matter of the 17th game added before the 2021 season, but even on a per-game basis, 22 of the 23 receivers from the latter list eclipsed 53 yards per game. Even if we reduce the threshold of the former group to account for the extra game, only 11 rookies in the 2014-2018 time period eclipsed 53 yards per game. This shouldn’t be surprising as seemingly every year we have one of the “best receiving classes ever.” Just last season, the highly-regarded first-round picks Jordan Addison and Zay Flowers stepped in and became major contributors, but so did the lesser regarded Puka Nacua, Sam LaPorta, and the now embattled Rashee Rice. Prior to that, in 2022 George Pickens, Chris Olave, Drake London, and Garrett Wilson made instant impacts. And those are just the high volume guys. You’ll notice I didn’t mention any Packers, most of whom were also awesome in their own ways. So let’s talk about the Packers. In 2023 the Packers put together a very good offense with no veteran pass-catchers. Zero. They don’t even have your traditional first-round monster primary receiver. And while no individual receiver accumulated a huge number of yards, every single wideout or tight end managed to be among the most efficient receivers in the entire league, especially once the switch flipped for all of them and Jordan Love about halfway through. But just how good were they? Pro Football Reference keeps a statistic called “Success Rate.” The definition is as follows: Receiving Success RateA successful reception gains at least 40% of yards required on 1st down, 60% of yards required on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd or 4th down. Denominator is targets. This is very similar to the general definition of what constitutes a success in FTN’s DVOA. After November first of last year, 189 players across the NFL had at least 20 targets. Of those 189 players, six different Packers ranked within the top 30 in success rate. Romeo Doubs and Luke Musgrave were first and second, respectively. Bo Melton was 16th. Dontayvion Wicks was 18th. Tucker Kraft was 20th. And Christian Watson rounds out the group at 28th. Puka Nacua was 29th, by the way.
Despite having no savvy old veteran, the Packers managed to be an unstoppable machine of passing efficiency, spreading the ball to everyone and always producing positive plays. Although they did in all likelihood get lucky in hitting on so many impactful players, the fact of the matter is the sheer volume of impressive receiver talent available also allowed this to happen. They’re almost as impressive from a Yards per Target perspective as well, by the way, with Jayden Reed joining the group at 65th. Slot receivers often have slightly depressed raw stats due to their shorter average routes. We’ve long held that it’s a mistake to pay veteran running backs the market rate. Except in rare instances, you can replenish your stable of backs cheaply and easily through the draft. Receivers (and possibly tight ends) may be starting to head in that direction as well, and smart teams should take notice. Diggs is good, and the odds are that he will help the Texans offense next season. But is he really better than Collins or Dell? Will the targets he takes away from lesser receivers be worth those he steals from the potentially more efficient ones, and will this happen more than they would like given Diggs’ preference as the number one guy? Given what the Packers accomplished last season, I’d be very wary of adding a veteran to the mix, especially a veteran with any kind of locker room red flags. https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/2024 ... eiver-unit
