The Houston Texans will already be without star rookie wide receiver Tank Dell for the rest of the season but could also be without Nico Collins as well. So while the team has solid depth in veterans Robert Woods and Noah Brown to step in, Houston will likely get extended looks at some of their young pass-catchers as well.
Two that stood out of offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik are 2022 second-rounder John Metchie III and 2023 sixth-rounder Xavier Hutchinson. Neither has seen much this season – Metchie has 13 receptions on 21 targets for 144 yards, while Hutchinson has four catches on seven targets for 58 yards – but Slowik likes what he’s seen from both.
“Metchie has just been – he’s always been a really good football player,” Slowik said Thursday. “I would say: He doesn’t have one thing that he’s elite at. He’s just really good at everything across the board. And then ‘Hutch’ [Xavier Hutchinson] is a really big body that moves pretty fast and fights through contact really, really well.”
But there are growing pains.
Neither player mustered much production in Houston’s 30-6 loss to the Jets despite the absences of Dell and Collins (who left in the first quarter). That’s part of the evaluation for Slowik.
“That takes time. That takes reps. That takes real live bullets when you’re out there and how guys are playing you in man [coverage] and how you need to adjust and what you need to do a little different,” Slowik added, “and I think they’re kind of building that callus, as I like to say, and kind of working through that. And I, just like they’ve been, I expect that to just keep improving.”