The 2024 NFL Season has not been kind to leading wide receivers from last season, as many have had unfortunate injury luck. The table below shows the 10 leading WRs in Receiving Total Points in 2023. Six of the 10 have missed at least one game due to injury this season. That number could rise to seven with CeeDee Lamb’s status in question this week due to a shoulder injury suffered during last week’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons. 

* Missed at least one game due to injury

These injuries have opened the door for a new wave of wide receivers to top our 2024 Total Points leaderboard. Now, this list isn’t perfect as some teams have had byes, and some haven’t, but here is the current 2024 leaderboard: 

* Missed at least one game due to injury

There are some familiar faces in Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase and we also see an influx of youth, with guys like Khalil Shakir and Zay Flowers in the top five. I can’t help but notice that there are still have four players that have missed games due to injury in the top 10, and specifically three in the top five. Chris Godwin was having a fantastic season before suffering a gruesome season-ending ankle injury on Monday Night Football against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 7.

This article will focus on A.J. Brown and Nico Collins, two dominant WRs who cracked the top five despite only playing in five games this season, including games they left due to injury. 

Brown and Collins are prototypical “X” WRs in the NFL who are often able to physically overmatch opposing defensive backs due to sheer size and athleticism. These types of receivers do not grow on trees, which is why both of these guys were paid big money by their respective teams. Brown and Collins earn every penny they make as this chart showing Passing EPA Per 60 Plays splits with each player on and off the field shows: 

To no surprise, the Eagles and Texans passing offenses have been 19 and 18 EPA per 60 plays better with Brown and Collins on the field, respectively. That’s more than a touchdown per game on average. 

Let’s take a deeper dive into how these offenses coped without their star wide receiver. 

Philadelphia Eagles

A portion of the Eagles fanbase wanted Head Coach Nick Sirianni to also lose his job and despite a 6-2 start to this season, it still seems like some fans still want him gone. However, they have won their last four games after starting the season 2-2. It’s no coincidence that coincides with the return of A.J. Brown from injury. They are 5-0 in games he plays and 1-2 in games that he has not played. Brown has been top 10 in Total Points among wide receivers every season since being traded during the 2022 NFL Draft from the Titans to the Eagles. That trend should continue if he’s healthy.

It doesn’t appear like the Eagles made any drastic schematic changes to account for Brown being out of the lineup. As I mentioned earlier, a player of Brown’s size and caliber is irreplaceable. Just ask Titans fans. This led to a drop in efficiency while Brown was out, as we can see below: 

Eagles with A.J. Brown

The sample size for the on-off splits for dropbacks and pass attempts are very close to 50/50 giving us a great sample to pull from. The drop in EPA for the passing game doesn’t seem to be because of Hurts playing poorly without Brown, as his completion percentage, catchable percentage, and interception percentage are all pretty similar. The marginal decrease in ADoT with Brown off the field shows that Hurts was still willing to push the ball down the field despite being without his top receiver. So why did yards per attempt and yards per dropback decrease significantly? 

The Eagles missed the yards after catch ability that A.J. Brown brings to the table with his size and speed. The Eagles average 2.1 yards more after the catch with Brown on the field this season. Last year, Brown ranked 4th in yards after contact and 11th in yards after catch overall. This is what makes a player like Brown special and tough to replace. 

The Eagles need Brown to stay healthy and available as they battle the Commanders for first place in the NFC East. He picked up a minor knee injury in this past week’s game against the Jaguars and is now listed as questionable for this week’s game against the Cowboys. 

Houston Texans

No one has to have been more thrilled with the arrival of C.J. Stroud in Houston last year than Nico Collins. He has emerged as one of the top wide receivers in the NFL in the past year and a half and was handsomely compensated for his performance with a contract of 20-plus million dollars per year this past offseason.

It’s been a rough showing for Stroud and the Texans passing offense with the absence of Nico Collins combined with Stefon Diggs being lost for the season after being injured in Week 8. It hasn’t been particularly pretty either and there is blame to be passed around to all of this offense. 

Stroud has been under constant pressure all year. He ranks 2nd in pressure rate and 7th in sack rate among passers with at least 100 attempts. Since Collins went out in Week 6, he has been pressured 66 times and taken 16 sacks, both of which lead the league. 

Stroud’s sacks-per-pressure rate increased by about six percentage points during this timespan showing that he misses his go-to-guy when he’s under pressure. Stroud’s Passing EPA stats were good when he was facing all that pressure with Nico on the field, but since then his performance under pressure has dropped off a cliff. Stroud’s play has seemed to dip the last four weeks as we can see in the table below: 

Texans with Nico Collins

Unlike Jalen Hurts, Stroud’s completion percentage and catchable percentage have dropped a pretty significant amount with Collins off the field. Stroud’s ADoT marginally increases compared to marginal decrease we had for Hurts, signaling that Stroud has even been more willing to push the ball down the field without his star man. Similar to the Eagles, part of it was because of a disastrous performance in Week 9 without Collins and Diggs in which Stroud had a -12 passing EPA. That ranked 2nd-worst that week behind Jameis Winston. 

The Texans entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations after an exciting, successful first season with C.J. Stroud along with some exciting offseason acquisitions in Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon. The Diggs acquisition had gone well enough before the season-ending injury, but his absence only exacerbates the need for Collins to return to the lineup. Even with his return, if the Texans can’t find a way to protect Stroud, Collins and Stroud can only do so much to paper over the glaring weakness of their offensive line. 

Opposing defenses seem to be taking notice of these problems and are exploiting them with Collins out of the lineup: 

Defenses vs Texans

As you can see, defenses are playing man coverage twice as often with Collins off the field while blitzing at a five percent higher rate. Teams also seem less afraid of being beaten over the top and are willing to add an extra defender in the box to stop the run.

There is optimism that Collins could return to the field soon and the Texans could definitely use him this week in prime time on Sunday Night Football as they take on the NFC’s best in the Lions and their man-coverage heavy defense. If Collins can’t go on Sunday, you can bet Aaron Glenn and the Lions defense will play lots of man-coverage while sending lots of pressure, daring a Texans receiver to win a one-on-one battle.

If Collins can play, that task is easier said than done.

Conclusion

Both of these offenses have suffered without their star WRs. The Eagles missed the playmaking ability of Brown after the catch and the Texans, well, they just miss Collins in general. Houston is suffering all-around because of his absence. Defenses were already exploiting a weak Texans offensive line, but now are also tightening up in coverage as teams no longer fear a passing attack without Collins and Diggs. 

The main difference between these two offenses? The offensive line, without a doubt. The Eagles boast one of the best offensive lines in football while the Texans might have one of the worst. That clearly makes a big difference.