Week 4 Walkthrough: Houston Singles Mixer
Welcome to the Week 4 Walkthrough.
In this article, I'll outline critical fantasy football context for the fourth glorious football Sunday.
(The stats below are from PFF, NFLfastR, rbsdm.com, RotoViz, FantasyPoints, FantasyLabs, ESPN, and NFL Next Gen).
Quick Links
- Jaguars at Texans, 1 PM
- Saints at Falcons, 1 PM
- Rams at Bears, 1 PM
- Vikings at Packers, 1 PM
- Steelers at Colts, 1 PM
- Broncos at Jets, 1 PM
- Eagles at Buccaneers, 1 PM
- Bengals at Panthers, 1 PM
- Commanders at Cardinals, 4:05 PM
- Patriots at 49ers, 4:05 PM
- Browns at Raiders, 4:25 PM
- Chiefs at Chargers, 4:25 PM
Jaguars at Texans, 1 PM
Jaguars Implied Team Total: 19.5
Last season, Trevor Lawrence wasn’t as efficient as we had hoped, but he was remarkably consistent. Based on his success rate, it wouldn't have been surprising for him to produce efficiency on par with Jordan Love or Patrick Mahomes.
This year is different. Lawrence’s success rate is genuinely bad. At this level of inconsistency, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to be as inefficient as Will Levis.
As you would expect with this big of a falloff, there appear to be a few things going on. First, Lawrence is struggling with accuracy. His interception against the Bills was an Anthony Richardson-level miss. And it was indicative of a bigger issue. Lawrence has a very poor -9% completion percentage over expected (CPOE).
Lawrence is also getting pressured, and turning those pressures into sacks at too high a rate.
The good news is that Lawrence is attacking deep, and is converting downfield throws fairly efficiently – despite his accuracy issues.
What he needs is a matchup with a weak pass rush that can allow him to settle down and consistently hit downfield throws.
What he gets instead is the Texans defense.
The Texans aren’t generating pressure super quickly, but they do it very consistently, and they get to the QB with just four rushers. This helps them prevent explosive plays.
The one bright spot here is that the Texans have not been great at protecting the deep middle of the field, where Lawrence is a willing thrower. While this doesn’t look like a get-right spot for the Jaguars QB, his weapons could still do some damage.
The issue for us is that any such opportunity looks pretty spread out. Jags WRs Brian Thomas, Christian Kirk, and Gabe Davis are all very similar in target share, first-read target rate, and targetst per route run.
Targets to the splash zone (10+ yards downfield and over the middle) aren’t super frequent, so I’m giving it another week or two before fully diving into the WR level data. But because the Texans are suspectible to these targets, I’ll note here that no one is jumping out in that area either. It’s hard to identify a true No. 1 option here.
In a situation like this, give me the 1st-round rookie who carved out a significant role in the offense immediately—despite meaningful veteran competition. Thomas is a volatile but intriguing play.
Things are further complicated by the potential return of Evan Engram. However, Engram probably feels like more of a complicating factor than he actually is. His abbreviated 2024 appearance produced a grotesque caricature of the real Evan Engram experience. A bunch of shallow targets… producing nothing.
Brenton Strange has been targeted at the exact same rate—and is actually producing on those looks. I would expect Engram to deliver pretty similarly to what Strange has done, albeit with a shallower aDOT and on more routes. Simply being out there more often should help Engram eat into the target distribution more than Strange, but I don’t expect a huge shift.
In some ways the Jacksonville defense matters just as much to the Jaguars' passing outlook as the Texans defense does… because the Jaguars are more likely to pass if they’re forced to play from significantly behind. Jacksonville went run-heavy against the Dolphins in Week 1. They lost that game, but were ahead until 4:22 remaining in the 4th quarter. The Jags were tilted to the run in Week 2, as well. They lost that game too, but never trailed by more than 10 points. It wasn’t until their Week 3 shellacking in Buffalo that they posted a positive PROE.
For as long as the game remains close, we can expect the Jaguars to stay balanced, or even run-first. They have not blocked well in the running game, but are still getting strong results on the ground—and now face a mediocre Texans run defense.
Travis Etienne doesn’t have a total lock on touches, but he retains a valuable workload. His 33% success rate is a concern, especially after posting a poor 37% rate last year. But he’s showing more explosiveness than last season. And although he hasn’t capitalized on it, he’s also getting work as a receiver. He’s an RB2.
Texans Implied Team Total: 26
In Week 14 last season, C.J. Stroud was held to 91 scoreless passing yards on 23 attempts. He posted a 32% success rate — the same mark he hit against the Vikings last week.
Given that Stroud has literally never been worse than he was last week, we can expect a bounce back here.
Still, it’s worth noting that Stroud’s start to the season has been disappointing. It’s not just a few key plays that have gone against him, either. Stroud’s down-to-down consistency has been a major issue.
Here’s the good news… the Jaguars are coming to Houston.
The Jaguars have one of the worst pass rushes in the NFL—consistently failing to generate pressure, or doing so at a snail’s pace if they’re able to. They also don’t blitz, which will be a reprieve for Stroud after last week’s tilt with Brian Flores.
Oddly, despite not blitzing the QB, the Jaguars don’t double team opposing WRs much. This is a team that leads the NFL with a 61% man-coverage rate, and yet in Week 1, they doubled Tyreek Hill on just 14% of his routes. Fittingly, on one of those single-man coverage routes, Hill got loose for an 80-yard TD.
So… we’re likely looking at C.J. Stroud with lots of time to throw, coupled with Nico Collins seeing a healthy dose of single-man coverage...
Or we would be, if Nico Collins hadn't suffered a hamstring injury on Thursday.
As I write this, Collins' outlook for Sunday is unclear. If he's healthy, this is a very exciting setup.
Because since 2023, against single-man coverage… Collins is averaging 4.83 YPRR. Only Tyreek Hill (6.55), Mike Evans (5.98), Justin Jefferson (5.32), and A.J. Brown (4.93) rank higher.
Collins has been delivering elite efficiency, despite facing a ton of double coverage this year. So even if the Jaguars come to their senses and double a healthy Collins, he’s still a good bet to produce.
Nico Collins has proven that he's one of the top WRs in the NFL against man coverage—so if the Jaguars play things like they did against Tyreek Hill, a healthy Collins is going to absolutely smash.
However, it seems more likely that Collins' hamstring hampers him in this high-upside matchup and potentially keeps him out entirely. It also looks like Tank Dell is trending toward missing this game.
That sets up Stefon Diggs to soak up volume. Diggs hasn't been as dominant against man coverage as Collins since 2023, but he's drawn a lot of targets, with a 37% TPRR, in the vicinity of Collins' 43%.
And the Texans have been interested in getting Diggs the ball. His 17% first-read target rate is actually higher than Collins’ 15%. He's not earning targets as frequently as Collins, and doesn’t have the same downfield connection with Stroud. But if asked to step up as the only healthy option in the Texans' WR trio, he's a very strong bet for high-end target volume.
Critically, the Texans have been willing to pass this year, especially when pushed. If Jacksonville can put up points, we should see solid pass volume from Houston.
Dalton Schultz should also see a bigger role if Collins and/or Dell misses this game. Schultz's role has been dramatically reduced since last season, but he's still running a lot of routes, and his target competition could be signficantly reduced this week.
With Joe Mixon out last week, Cam Akers was able to find the end zone on his only reception of the game but managed just 29 yards on 10 touches.
Mixon is expected to miss Week 4, but Dameon Pierce (hamstring) will likely be back, complicating the touch projection. And this is not the type of profile we should be excitied about with even minor complications.
Still, there should be rushing production here against a mediocre Jaguars run defense—especially if the Texans are playing from ahead.
