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Jayden Higgins is garnering more attention ahead of a potential breakout season.

The Houston Texans took an unconventional approach during the 2025 draft that could pay tremendous dividends in 2026 with players like Jayden Higgins.

Higgins was the Texans’ top pick of the 2025 cycle, and he has already shown that he could be a complement to Nico Collins, rather than the carbon copy that his physical profile would otherwise suggest that he is.

Higgins has also shown signs that he could take a big step forward heading into Year 2.

Jayden Higgins Could Break Out for Texans

The Texans traded out of the first round last year, selecting Higgins with the 34th overall pick of the class. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer noted Higgins is “worth keeping an eye on,” after he “came on late” and had a “nice back half” of the season as a “spot starter” as a rookie.

“It’s easy to forget that Higgins was essentially Houston’s first-round pick last year,” Breer wrote on June 22. Higgins certainly has looked that part in the spring.”

Breer noted Collins and Higgins have “nearly identical” frames.

The veteran is “physically stronger,” while Higgins is a “smoother, looser athlete.” But the fact that both players check in at 6-foot-4 “certainly stands to present defenses with a host of problems.”

Breer said that one Texans staffer compared Higgins and Collins to having a small and power forward in basketball.

Breer named Higgins as one of several promising developments for the Texans.

“In a way, Higgins’s progress is a nice little signal for where the Texans are now going into DeMeco Ryans’s fourth year and GM Nick Caserio’s sixth season at the helm—with a young team that’s no longer just full of rising young talent, but squarely in a championship window.”

Texans’ Other Second-Round Pick Gets Breakout Love

Higgins is not the only second-year Texans player who some expect to take a significant step forward this season, with fellow wideout and former Iowa State Cyclone Jaylin Noel taking on a larger role and Aireontae Ersery poised for a potential break out of his own.

Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport named Ersery as the Texans’ “under-the-radar” player who in line for a “major role.”

Ersery started 16 games as a rookie.

“Ersery will be the key to whether this latest rebuild sticks” Davenport wrote of the second-year Texans lineman in an article on June 22. “He was pressed into the starting lineup off the jump as a rookie, playing almost 1,100 snaps. Per Pro Football Focus, it was an uneven year, with seven sacks allowed and 11 penalties.

“The Texans saw enough that they made no real effort to upgrade at the position. And given that most offensive lines are as good as the player protecting the quarterback’s blind side, C.J. Stroud is no doubt hopeful that Ersery takes a big step forward in 2026.”

Davenport continued that Stroud “has quite a bit riding on” Ersery, the Texans’ second pick in the 2025 draft at 48th overall, taking the necessary progress this season.

The same can be said about every member of the Texans’ offensive line.