If there is one team that the football world is most excited to see heading into the 2024 NFL season, the Houston Texans have to be close to the top of the list. Besides the immense amount of success they had last season under the first years of head coach DeMeco Ryans and quarterback C.J. Stroud, they traded for star receiver Stefon Diggs to give the team even more lofty expectations.
Diggs has been one of the best wide receivers in the league since his time with the Minnesota Vikings going in to his more productive years with the Buffalo Bills. However, a Super Bowl ring still has escaped the 30-year old receiver as he is still “chasing” that accomplishment to add to his already impressive resume according to NBC Sports.
“I feel like I’ve been chasing the Super Bowl since I got in the league,” Diggs said. “To say like you get to one specific place and say this is where I want to try to win it, but this is where I’m at right now. Obviously, I believe in this team and the quarterback. Those are unspoken things that we all can assume.”
Diggs says before chasing Super Bowl, Texans have to focus on Game 1
The star wideout joins an already explosive offense as besides the aforementioned Stroud, it has receivers Tank Dell coming off an impressive rookie season and the recently paid player in Nico Collins. Plus, the team acquired Joe Mixon to solidify their running back spot as Houston is a team to watch out for in their championship aspirations, but Diggs expresses “that starts with game one.”
“For me, chasing a ring, it isn’t like I came here to chase it,” Diggs said. “I came here to win and that starts with game one. Moving forward, of course, you want a ring. It sounds good to be like you won a Super Bowl, and you won a ring, but it takes a lot of effort and consistency. For me, I’m going to take it in one day at a time. It starts in practice, it starts in walk-through, it starts in the meeting rooms. For me, winning is always in the forefront of my brain with everything I do. It’s one thing at time, rather than jumping the gun. I don’t put the carrot before the horse.”
Diggs addresses claim of Houston having too many mouths to feed
As mentioned before, the Texans have an already packed wide receiver room where some think one player could fall to the wayside as feeding all three stars could be a recipe for disaster. However, this was a concern that Diggs knew about coming in to a team with Dell and Collins, but is not too worried about it.
“I feel like that’s something I knew coming in,” Diggs said. “Before I got here, obviously, I knew that Nico had a hell of a year; Tank just got hurt, but he was going to have a hell of a year. It’s always a balance. It’s not my job to call the plays. I’ve just got to get open and catch it. For me, it is not something I would worry about. You do your job, you get the ball. I feel like this offense is one of the offenses that got a lot of horses in the stable, you know what I’m saying? You let them all loose, and we’ll figure the rest out.”
C.J. Stroud touches on the initial fit with Diggs and Texans
While there was some fall off towards the end of the year, Diggs had another productive season in 2023 where he caught 107 passes for 1,183 yards to go along with seven touchdowns. As it is another weapon for Stroud, he is looking to further improve after an impressive rookie season and so far, he's a fan of the fit with the former Bill according to NFL.com.
“He's been fitting in great, he's come in with his head down and just working,” Stroud said of Diggs. “He's helping me out a lot, he's come in and been a leader, which I'm proud of him for, he's really been unselfish and wanted to see other guys eat. That was his main thing — he wanted to be around other dogs. He stepped into that role where there's a dog everywhere. He wanted that and that's what we bring to the table.”
Another person within the Texans organization that has high expectations for his team is head coach DeMeco Ryans who talked in-depth since the trade about how exciting it is to have a player like Diggs in their offense. In terms of his evaulation, he has so far met his expectations and more.
“What I've seen is a guy who I thought we would get,” Ryans said. “A guy who's made plays and every time we've thrown him the ball, he's come down with it. Sure-handed guy. A really good teammate, a great energy around the building and in a locker room with the guys. So I'm excited to continue to see his growth.”
Texans OC says “all limits off” with acquisition of Diggs
While some may be concerned about the fit when the season comes around, Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik does not seem to be on the same boat. If anything, he considers it more of a blessing than a curse as having a plethora of weapons “takes all limits off” according to Kevin Patra of NFL.com.
“It is really that, it takes all limits off whatever you need to do to win a game,” Slowik said. “If we feel like we need to throw the ball deep to win a game, we can do that, if we have to throw it short to win a game, we can do that, if we have to run the ball 40 times to win a game, we feel like we can do that. It just enables and empowers us to do whatever is necessary that given week to beat the opponent in front of us, and everybody on our offense, and really on our team right now, is all in on that and that is what is making this really fun.”
In any sense, Houston is hoping Diggs can push the offense and the team overall over the hump coming off of a season where they went 10-7, won the AFC South, and made it to the divisional round of the playoffs. They start their season on Sunday, Sept. 8 where the Texans will take on the Indianapolis Colts on the road.
