Is WR Brandin Cooks the only safe fantasy player on the Texans?
The Houston Texans dont have many sure fantasy options on the 2021 squad as the team is expected to compete for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft. In 2020, although the Texans slumped to a 4-12 finish, they did have quarterback Deshaun Watson playing lights out en route to his third Pro Bowl selection. For fantasy owners, Watson was still a viable asset on the Texans squad. However, with Watsons availability next to nil for 2021, it leaves the fantasy cupboard virtually barren for the Texans. According to Ian Hartitz from Pro Football Focus, the Texans may still have one sure thing left on their roster in receiver Brandin Cooks. Weve really only seen Cooks look somewhat average twice during his seven-year NFL career: as a rookie in 2014 and with the bad version of Jared Goff in 2019. Note that these instances in 2014 (10 games) and 2019 (14) were also the only times in Cooks career that he failed to appear in at least 15 games. 2014: PPR WR56  2015: WR14  2016: WR10  2017: WR15  2018: WR13  2019: WR61  2020: WR17 Turns out life catching passes from Drew Brees, Tom Brady, 2018 Goff and Deshaun Watson is good for fantasy business. The interesting part about Cooks most-recent WR2 finish was the reality that he wasnt used as a pure field-stretching talent for the first time since his rookie season. Overall, Cooks boasted an average target depth of at least 13 yards in every season from 2015-2019; in 2020 he posted a relatively mild 12.6-yard mark. Credit to Watson for helping engineer arguably the best version of Cooks yet. He posted career-high marks in yards per route run (2.05) and PFF receiving grade (80.5) in 2020 and generally looked the part of a truly great NFL WR throughout the year. The risk with Cooks is that he is part of an offense that will be different from the one he played in last season. With three Pro Bowlers at running back, Houston may play more ball-control offense and more of a field position game. If so, Cooks may not see many targets. In terms of production, Cooks has proven the ability to adapt to different quarterbacks, which does make him a relatively safe option in fantasy.