Houston Texans: 5 reasons they’ll reach playoffs

4. Talented Pass Catchers

It starts and ends with DeAndre Hopkins. However, he can’t do what he does without Will Fuller providing a threat on the other side of the field. Last year, Fuller had seven touchdowns in just 10 games, finding his way into the end zone consistently. Most of the time, he was running deep routes, which is even more helpful for Hopkins.

Fuller’s average targeted air yards of 15.6 yards was good for fourth best in the league last year, behind fellow speedsters J.J. Nelson, DeSean Jackson, and John Brown. Going to deep clears out defenders, giving Hopkins more room to operate underneath the secondary.

Hopkins was one of the best receivers in the league last year, absolutely dominating games. He had a league leading 13 receiving touchdowns, and without Fuller absolutely took over games. Singlehandedly, he accounted for 43.87 percent of the Texans air yards, helping him on his way to 1,377 receiving yards. We shouldn’t be surprised though, he’s been doing it his entire career.

He’s been around the league average in catch rate his entire career, but has had to fight through a lot to make that happen. He is one of the few players that even Bill Belichick believes deserves a double team. That is because of the amount of targets he gets. He led the league in target percentage last year, helping him rank fifth in Player Profiler’s Hog Rate statistic.

Hopkins believes a full year with Watson this year could be dangerous, and we have every reason to believe that. Given the incredible numbers he put up last year with average to below average quarterback play, a stellar quarterback can only help. Fuller might be thinking that a little more since all seven of his touchdowns came from Watson. Lining these two up out wide will give the Texans plenty of open receivers to throw the ball to.