Collins Questionable for Cincinnati, and Houston's Receiver Room Is Running Out of Margin

Nico Collins picked up a hamstring injury in practice on September 17 and is listed as questionable for Week 2 against the Bengals. That's the update. The context is what makes it uncomfortable.

Last season Collins was the clear top option in this passing game — 1,138 yards and six touchdowns in 16 games. The receivers around him this week are Kayshon Boutte, acquired from New England in late August, Mitchell Tinsley, signed at the end of the month, and Xavier Hutchinson, who has been a reliable depth piece. Jayden Higgins is gone for the year with a torn ACL. Tank Dell is on injured reserve. The group that was supposed to surround Collins was already thin before he showed up on the injury report.

Jaylin Noel is back on active status, which helps at the margins. Dalton Schultz is healthy, and Stroud has leaned on him before when the perimeter options thinned out. The backfield — Woody Marks, and whatever David Montgomery contributes — gives the offense a way to manage a short week without overexposing a depleted corps. Houston has options. They're just not the options anyone drew up in the spring.

The Texans have absorbed a lot of bad injury news in the last three weeks. Collins missing time would be the latest in a sequence that has steadily narrowed the margin for error on offense. He may play. Hamstrings in September are not always the story they look like on Wednesday. But if he doesn't, Stroud is throwing to a room that was assembled in an emergency and has not yet been tested in a game that matters.