5 Current Rookies With the Best Chances of Starting for the Houston Texans

The Houston Texans are a high profile team, filled with future, current and former Pro Bowl players. The team is loaded with top talent at many positions, but not every position has such pedigree. The Texans aren’t loaded with high-end talent. In fact, some positions on the team may be filled by relative unknowns.

The Texans drafted a bunch of guys this year, and as the 2024 NFL Draft ended, it became clear that some of these rookies would likely benefit from a lot of playing time. How much playing time will last is anyone’s guess. So we take a look at five rookies who can expect to get playing time this season, starting with the minimum to the maximum we would expect to see them play.

Cade Stover comes in primarily as a blocker for the Houston Texans. He’ll likely have to work on developing his pass-catching skills, and since he was CJ Stroud’s former tight end at Ohio State, the two will likely already have some built-in chemistry. Still, he’s not at Dalton Schultz’s level, at least not yet, so don’t expect Stover to become the number one tight end.

While Stover isn’t a complete package like Schultz, he is almost as good at blocking as Schultz. So we can expect to see plenty of two-tight end sets going down. With the future of fullback Andrew Beck up in the air, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to see Stover take on an H-Back role as well. We expect to see a lot of Stover in 2024, even if he’s not considered a starter. With the Texans currently having four viable wide receivers, not to mention the addition of Ben Skowronek, it’s entirely possible we won’t see much of Stover as previously thought when he was drafted.

Still, Stover is going to make an impact.