Texans wide receiver Stefon Diggs out for season with torn ACL: ‘It’s definitely a blow to us. He’s hurting’

HOUSTON – Texans wide receiver Stefon Diggs suffered a season-ending torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee that will end his season as he’ll undergo surgery and be placed on injured reserve, according to coach DeMeco Ryans.

This represents a major blow to the Texans’ offense.

Diggs was injured on a noncontact play while running a route Sunday during a 23-20 win over the Indianapolis Colts at NRG Stadium.

‘Unfortunately, he tore his ACL,” Ryans said Wednesday. “He’ll be out for the year. It really hurts our team to hear that news.”

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Diggs underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam that determined the severity and nature of the injury.

‘It’s definitely a blow to us,” Ryans on Diggs’ season-ending torn ACL. ‘He’s hurting, of course, and we’re hurting for him as well.”

Voted a team captain in balloting from his teammates, Diggs established himself as a leader in the locker room. The players are taking the injury hard.

“I feel really bad for him,” Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud said. “He was having the best time playing football in his career, that’s what he told us. You try to think positively about it, but it’s not a bunch of positive thoughts. I just feel bad for him. I’m praying for him.”

‘We don’t like to see our players go down at all,” said Pro Bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil, whose locker is a few down from Diggs. “We hate to see our brothers fall. We put so much into this game, you hate to see it. It happens.”

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Diggs, a four-time Pro Bowl selection obtained this offseason from the Buffalo Bills in a trade, headed directly to the locker room as he walked under his own power.

“Prayers go out to Stef,” Stroud said before the injury was diagnosed.

Diggs caught five passes for 81 yards, including a 49-yard reception, on nine targets, for one of his bigger games since joining the defending AFC South champions.

“I didn’t really see what happened,” running back Joe Mixon said. “I just saw my brother down.”

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With Nico Collins out one more game Thursday against the New York Jets with sources expecting him back from a hamstring injury by a Nov. 10 game against the Detroit Lions following a speedy recovery, Diggs’ injury represents a major setback for the Texans. They’ll lean heavily on wide receiver Tank Dell.

Diggs leads the Texans with 47 catches and ranks second to Collins with 496 yards and is tied with him with three touchdown catches. He was on pace for 100 catches and 1,000 yards before this injury.

Without Diggs and Collins, the Texans’ top wide receivers are Dell, Xavier Hutchinson, Robert Woods and John Metchie III.

Dell caught four passes for 35 yards on four targets, including a touchdown, as he bounced back from a zero-catch game against the Green Bay Packers. Tight end Dalton Schultz caught four passes for 52 yards on six targets. Running back Joe Mixon had four catches for 32 yards. Metchie had three catches for 29 yards, Woods had two catches for 18 yards and Hutchinson had a diving 19-yard reception.

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“I’ve been praying already for him that he gets back right,” Dell said of Diggs’ injury. “I shot him a text and called him. Man, that’s the name of the game. That’s my brother. I just pray that whatever happened that it’s something minor and nothing crazy and he can get back out there.”

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The Texans are 6-2 and still legitimately haven’t played their best football yet.

“We’re all right,” Dell said. “We all know it can be way better. We know what we’re capable of. I know we harp on this every week in these interviews, but the sky is the limit for this team. We got to keep putting all the pieces together.”

Dell caught seven touchdowns as a rookie before breaking his fibula. After recovering from that injury, the former third-round draft pick from the University of Houston suffered a gunshot wound as an innocent bystander in a mass shooting at a party in his home state of Florida. He made another full recovery, but he’s off to a slow start to his second NFL season.

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Dell has 24 catches for 229 yards and two touchdowns through eight games, averaging 9.5 yards per catch with a long reception of 23 yards.

Dell hasn’t produced as well as he did in his rookie year, when he was on pace for 1,205 yards before breaking his leg in December. Last year he averaged 70 receiving yards per game up until Week 13, but this season he’s averaging just 32 yards. He scored his second touchdown in the Texans’ win Sunday against the Colts and finished with 35 yards.

“Yeah, I think he had a great mindset coming into the week, just getting better, owning his opportunities, and I thought he did a great job of that,” Stroud said. “He ran a lot of good routes today. Me and him are really close. We just want to feed off one another. It was good just to get our mojo back going. I’m just super proud of him, what he’s been able to do and he’s going to have to step up really big for us.”

Read more on the Texans:

• ‘I believe in Tank, I have all the faith in Tank,’ Texans want to get Tank Dell more involved after zero-catch game
• How ‘everything is on the table’ for Texans after pass protection meltdown, Laremy Tunsil emphasizes bigger picture
• ‘It’s not good enough,’ Texans’ banged-up defense played well, but can’t get one final stop in loss to Packers
• ‘I’m never the bigger person,’ tempers flare between Texans’ Stefon Diggs and Packers, Jaire Alexander
• Best in class: Texans’ C.J. Stroud, Packers’ Jordan Love meet for first time in battle of talented quarterbacks, friends
• ‘I’m ready for the ball,’ Texans corner D’Angelo Ross reflects on first NFL start, ‘challenge’ of Packers’ Jordan Love

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com