Jaylin Noel might jump to WR2 quickly in the Houston Texans offense

Yahoo

07-05-2025

Jaylin Noel might jump to WR2 quickly in the Houston Texans offense | NFL Draft Live
Yahoo Sports' 'Draft Live' crew reacts to the Houston Texans selecting Iowa State WR in the third round of the draft.
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Video Transcript
Uh, Jalen Noel, you said, whoa, for the Texans.
Uh, OK, two things are hilarious.
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Wa't they draft Higgins earlier?
Yes, number one, they drafted the other Iowa State receiver Jayden Higgins earlier, so one of them will work out.
Straight up.
I, I just like Jalen Noll a little bit better as a player, even though I, as I said, I love the, the, this landing spot for, for Jayden Higgins.
The second thing is.
I compared Jalen Noel to Josh Downes, who went 79th overall the two drafts ago, so late to the Indianapolis Colts.
Jalen Noles's being taken at the 79th overall pick here.
Like it just makes too much.
sizeism is still rampant in the NFL, the receiver position.
These guys are going too late.
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Uh, Jalen Noel, people compare him to Christian Kirk, who is currently on the Texans roster, so, uh.
There's clearly a and again this is a sign that they're not counting on Tank Dell at this point, which I think unfortunately that is where we have to be.
But he can bring you a lot of those same routes like vertical stuff from the slot or the flanker position.
Man, again, just Nico Collins is that ex-receiver, and then these two guys, uh, Jayden Higgins and Jaylen Noel working as like big slot, little slot, big flanker, little flanker.
They did college a little bit.
Works it's, it's perfect.
Like that's that is so fun.
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If I'm CJ Stroud right now, I'm, I'm feeling great, fantasy fit gotta ask.
Yeah, I mean, I honestly, I, it wouldn't be surprising if he's better than Jayden Higgins or more productive in time, but I, again, this is a great landing spot for both of these guys.
Uh, they would both be on kind of, I, I'm just gonna watch the training camp report, see who's running mostly with the ones now.
Kirk is probably the favorite to be the #2 receiver this year, but.
He's a one year rental player and also coming back from an injury.
So, uh, man, I, I, I'm really excited for both these guys.
I again, late round sleeper.
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I, I know you can sell me on either one of these.
Noel is he gets the useful tag complimentary, and yeah, Christian Kirk was my comparison for him, but it was Christian Kirk if he could block and that's what I like about them.
They're gonna want to block too.
Yes, and he can do the dirty work stuff.
That's what I love.
He's a vertical guy.
His ball skills are better than Higgins in the weirdest way.
As far as like contest to get stuff, uh, Higgins doesn't drop a lot, but, uh, Noel doesn't either.
Uh, it brings the deep ball element.
Good route runner.
It's got some yak, good punt returner as well, won Special teams player of the Year in a Big 12 last year.
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I do, I do love it when teams look at a position.
You talk about the Jets with the offensive tackle last year.
Look at a position, they say never again.
We are never going to go through what we went through last year.
So we go, yeah, Chrisian Kirk, you add the two Iowa State receivers and you joker pulls or pulls Qs and say.
Tryouts.
I mean they had like Xavier no disrespect to these players, but they had Xavier Hutchinson and John Meche like multiple times like, oh like, these guys again like they're running the main routes in the games like that just can't continue to happen to a quarterback and see who has so much problems.
This is gonna be a safety blanket.
He's gonna love this guy.