The receiver market got even smaller on Wednesday with the Houston Texans acquiring Stefon Diggs from the Buffalo Bills. Per ESPN's Adam Schefter , the Bills will receive a 2025 second-round draft pick from the Texans in exchange for the four-time Pro Bowl wideout and two draft picks. While the Texans were unlikely to be in the market for a big-ticket receiver like Tee Higgins, their decision to make a move for Diggs leaves other teams that have been trying to find a high-quality pass-catcher with one fewer option to consider. Higgins is still waiting for a resolution to his trade request after the Cincinnati Bengals used the franchise tag to prevent him from hitting free agency. His situation is further complicated because an acquiring team will presumably have to pay him top-of-the-market money on a long-term contract. If teams don't want to take the big swing on Higgins, while also paying him a significant contract and giving up the draft capital Cincinnati will be seeking, Odell Beckham Jr. is arguably the top free-agent receiver still on the market. Beckham won't cost nearly as much in money as Higgins will, but the ceiling at this stage of his career is much lower. Here are the teams that should have interest in either Higgins and/or Beckham if they need a wide receiver with Diggs no longer an option. Just to state this upfront: The Carolina Panthers are only an option for Higgins. They don't need Beckham because they tried the receiver who is over 30, on the downside of his career last season with Adam Thielen, and his inability to separate was one of the big problems for Bryce Young. Carolina made one good move earlier this offseason for a wideout by acquiring Diontae Johnson from the Pittsburgh Steelers for cornerback Dante Jackson and a swap of late-round draft picks. Johnson can be a volatile personality on the field, but if he's engaged, he solves the Panthers' problem of having no receivers who can get open. ESPN's Seth Walder noted the 27-year-old has graded well above-average in each season of his career in the open-score metric. Adding Higgins would dramatically improve the Panthers' receiver room. They would have a bona fide No. 1 on the outside who can create plays deep down the field or in traffic. Even if the Panthers had to trade the No. 33 pick, which is their first selection in the 2024 draft, they need to surround Young with as much immediate-impact talent as possible to determine if he's the quarterback they thought he was when they selected him with the top pick last year. If the Panthers aren't going to make a big splash for someone like Higgins, the New
England Patriots are the other obvious candidate to make a significant offer to the Bengals. As things currently stand with the draft order, the Patriots seem likely to go with a quarterback at No. 3 overall. They don't necessarily have to play a rookie after signing Jacoby Brissett in free agency, but the history of teams actually keeping a first-year quarterback on the bench for a full year makes that seem unlikely outside of extremely special circumstances. If the Patriots take a quarterback with their top pick, here's their current wide receiver depth chart: The first thing that anyone would say about that receiver room is Bourne is very good at catching passes in traffic on third down. That's a rough group to give to any quarterback, let alone a rookie. It's worth pointing out there are many problems with New England's offensive depth chart beyond wide receiver. This team also has a bottom-five offensive line, so even if they add a wideout, the quarterback will spend a lot of time running away from pressure. There are ways to scheme up an offensive line that doesn't look great on paper. It's much harder to hide a bad group of receivers. We know the Patriots weren't shying away from receivers in free agency. They reportedly made a very lucrative offer to Calvin Ridley before the Tennessee Titans came in with a bigger proposal of $92 million over four years that he accepted. The Patriots could be a team that trades for Higgins and signs Beckham simply because they need more than one receiver. But they absolutely need to do something with this receiver group before the start of the season. There's not an unfair argument to be made that Trevor Lawrence should try to pull a Kirk Cousins by just playing out the end of his rookie contract and two potential franchise tags to hit true free agency. While Lawrence has had plenty of flaws since entering the NFL, the Jacksonville Jaguars have so completely failed their quarterback from the time they selected him with the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2021. Lawrence's first NFL head coach was Urban Meyer. They used the No. 1 pick in 2022 on Travon Walker when the four players selected immediately after him were Aidan Hutchinson, Derek Stingley Jr., Sauce Gardner and Kayvon Thibodeaux. Jacksonville's biggest addition at wide receiver in the past three seasons was Calvin Ridley, who was serving a suspension at the time of the trade with the Atlanta Falcons in November 2022. Ridley had a successful 2023 with the Jaguars, leading the team with 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns. His overall performance was inconsistent throughout the season, but he was the best pass-catcher Jacksonville had for Lawrence in his first three seasons. There was an expectation Ridley was going to sign a new long-term with the Jaguars, but they were waiting because the terms of their trade agreement with Atlanta meant they would give up a less draft capital if he signed a contract after the start of the new league year. While the Jaguars were waiting things out, Ridley parlayed his leverage into a nice deal from the Titans. Jacksonville's only addition at wide receiver was signing Gabe Davis from the Buffalo Bills to a three-year, $39 million contract. There's also uncertainty around Josh Allen's long-term future in Jacksonville after he received the franchise tag, though it does at least sound like he will be on the team in 2024. The Jaguars have missed the window to take full advantage of Lawrence's rookie contract. He's going into his fourth season and eligible to sign a long-term extension this offseason. Since the organization can't look back on these past three years for what they didn't do, they need to move forward by giving Lawrence a difference-making wide receiver. Higgins would be a significant upgrade as the No. 1 option for Lawrence over Ridley. He would also be able to move the other Jags' wideouts down a spot on the depth chart into roles they are much better suited for. If they also wanted to sign Beckham as a No. 4 option when Davis or Zay Jones has to come off the field, it wouldn't be the worst thing for this offense to add more depth.