The Houston Texans had a busy offseason as they look to get over the hump in 2025. The past two seasons have been great as Houston celebrated a pair of AFC South Division titles, but last year ended in disappointment as they finished with the same record as the 2023 campaign and suffered another loss in the divisional round of the playoffs.
With the Texans looking to evolve, they’ll need some new players to step up during training camp. It leaves a player who has become a draft bust for Houston on the trading block, and it could be at the expense of a player who is primed to be a camp standout.
Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel Could Take John Metchie III’s Job During Texans Training Camp
The Texans needed some help at receiver this offseason behind No. 1 target Nico Collins. While Collins has broken out with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, his fellow playmakers were thrown into flux when Tank Dell suffered a multi-ligament knee injury and dislocated kneecap last December.
With Dell’s availability for the upcoming season in doubt, the Texans struck early in free agency, adding Christian Kirk in a trade with the Jacksonville Jaguars. But the Jaguars doubled down on the receiving room on the second day of April’s draft, adding Iowa State receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel.
The Cyclone duo combined for 2,377 yards and 14 touchdowns last season and wasted no time getting to work during the offseason program. Higgins came down with multiple highlight-reel plays and established a rapport with C.J. Stroud during Texans’ minicamp last month, while Noel rebounded from a few missed practices to have KPRC’s Chancellor Johnson note his quickness on the practice field.
Texans rookie Jaylin Noel’s quickness has jumped out the first two days of OTAs.
— Chancellor Johnson (@ChancellorTV) May 31, 2025
Excited to see his development throughout the rest of this offseason pic.twitter.com/oyyrkE2uZd
With Kirk, Higgins, and Noel joining Collins, the wide receiver room has gotten crowded in a short amount of time. While the Texans have several players avoiding the chopping block, it could be veteran John Metchie who’s the most notable name to be sent out of Houston.
Like Higgins and Noel, Metchie was a second-round pick by the Texans in the 2022 draft. He was also dealt a tough hand when he was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia shortly before his first training camp. But while Metchie has returned to the field, he hasn’t validated his second-round draft tag.
Metchie caught 16 passes for 158 yards in his first season and 24 passes for 254 yards last year. While he caught his first career touchdown in 2024, his performance was underwhelming everywhere else as he tied with Robert Woods for the second-lowest yards per route run average on the team at 1.07.
Dell’s uncertainty could spare Metchie from the blade, but there’s plenty of other competition that could be coming for his job. Justin Watson and Braxton Berrios were a pair of quiet signings in the offseason, and there’s a chance all of these receivers could be battling for one spot on the back end of the depth chart.
This leaves Metchie a victim of the numbers game and possibly staring at the end of his tenure in Houston.