Instant fantasy football takeaways from Texans-Jets Thursday Night Football

Garrett Wilson And Tank Dell shine while other recipients sat: The Houston Texans defeated Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs, while the New York Jets defeated Allen Lazard and Davante Adams towards the end of the game. The remaining starters racked up 210 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

Houston Texans rely heavily on Joe Mixon: In every game Mixon has played away from home, except when he was injured or returning from injury, he has carried the ball at least 24 times.

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Houston Texans @ New York fighter jets

Tank Dell steps in WR1 role: Stefon Diggs landed on injured reserve earlier this week due to a season-ending ACL tear, and Nico Collins remains on injured reserve due to a hamstring injury.

Del was C.J. StroudClearly his favorite target with the other two wide receivers out, he catches four passes for 70 yards. The Texans consistently rotated wide receivers on every play. Xavier Hutchinson tended to play the X receiver regardless of staff grouping, Dell as usual played the Z spot in 11 staff, John Metchie III played in the slot machine, and Robert Bos played the Z in 12 men. While these were the trends, everyone in both staff groups was significantly deployed in multiple positions.

This only led to Dell playing slightly more snaps, as they still prefer not to have a 6-foot-1, 165-pound receiver on most run plays.

The reports of Collins' recovery have generally been positive. Once he is able to return, we can expect him to take most of Hutchinson's snaps in the X-receiver role, leaving Hutchinson as just Collins' backup. We can largely expect the roles of Dell, Metchie III and Woods to remain that way for the rest of the season unless the Texans can pull off a trade before Tuesday's trade deadline.

Jets change their slot receiver: Of Allen Lazard on injured reserve, the Jets changed the slot wide receiver rotation.

The Jets wide receiver room got some bad news before the game, so Allen Lazard ended up on injured reserve due to a pectoral injury. For the second week in a row, Mike Williams was the clear third receiver in three-receiver sets, while Xavier Gipson And Malachi Corley occasionally mixed.

Lazard had been the Jets' primary slot receiver before his injury. Adams and Garrett Wilson both played more closing snaps last week. Williams spent 83% of his snaps in 2022-2023 outside in the lane, but in this game he recorded the most routes from the slot over the first three quarters with 10, followed by Adams' nine and Wilson's six .

Adams spent most of the fourth quarter being assessed for a concussion in the locker room. He was able to return late in the fourth quarter. While Adams was away, Williams became an all-down receiver, while Gipson consistently played in three-receiver sets. Williams remained the primary slot receiver. Considering how much Rodgers has thrown to slot receivers in his career, this could boost Williams' chances for fantasy value at some point this season.

Various comments

• Texans backup running back Dameon Pierce was inactive due to a groin injury. JJ Taylor was signed to the active roster on Wednesday to give the Texans a third running back.
• Texans lead tight end Dalton Schultz played only about two-thirds of the Texans' offensive snaps for a second straight week after playing more than 95% of snaps earlier in the season. Teagan Quitoriano took away about half of Schultz's twelve staff photos, while Cade Stover also took about 11 staff photos from him.
• Braelon Allen has replaced Breece Hall as the Jets' primary short-yardage back. From Weeks 1 through 7, Allen played 39% of the snaps when the Jets needed 1 to 2 yards for a first down. Over the past two weeks, he has played 73% of short-yardage games.
• The Jets activated the tight end Kenny Yeboah off injured reserve and released Anthony Firkser in a corresponding move. Yeboah served as the third tight end for New York on Thursday night. He played 206 offensive snaps from 2021-2023 as a backup tight end for New York.

Table notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. These plays have been removed from the other three statistics.
• Objectives may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be the result of an obviously thrown pass, where the NFL could give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data does not.
• Carries are only possible on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles do not count toward the total number of carries in the game.