Kayshon Boutte — Week 1: Two Targets, One Twenty-One-Yard Catch
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Boutte was thrown to twice in his first game as a Texan and caught one, a twenty-one-yard no-huddle throw on second and one from the Houston forty-eight with 1:35 left in the third that moved the chains on the drive to Houston's 28–27 lead. The other was a deep incompletion in the first quarter, and a six-yard catch in the third was erased by a chop-block penalty, in a 36–31 loss to the Bills.
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Kayshon Boutte's catch Sunday came out of the no-huddle. Second and one at the Houston 48, one 35 left in the third quarter, Texans down 21 to 27: C.J. Stroud short middle to Boutte, 21 yards to the Buffalo 31, tackled by C.J. Gardner-Johnson. It was worth +1.1 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and five points of win probability, and it was the longest gain on the 13-play drive that ended with David Montgomery's seven-yard touchdown catch early in the fourth.
The other target was in the first quarter: second and eight at the Buffalo 27, two 37 left, Houston down three to nothing, deep right, 18 yards in the air, incomplete. Nico Collins caught the 25-yarder on the next snap. A third throw to Boutte does not appear in his line — third and five at the Houston 39 with 13 39 left in the third, a six-yard catch that a chop-block penalty on Montgomery wiped out, leaving third and 20 and a punt. Two targets, one catch, 21 yards, no touchdowns, +0.4 expected points; one target in each half.
Houston threw 38 times. Collins was thrown to 10 times, Dalton Schultz eight, Xavier Hutchinson six, Montgomery three, and Boutte, Jaylin Noel and Foster Moreau two each. Among the wide receivers that put Boutte third by targets behind Collins and Hutchinson, and level with Noel, whose two catches went for 53 yards. Hutchinson's six were the second wideout's share, and that is the number Boutte's two sit against.
Back in June the preview's read on Boutte was a 40-eighth-place season among wide receivers with New England, with availability at 62.7 percent over five years as the thing that mattered more than what he did when on the field. The first game in Houston has him thrown to twice. That is one game played and the role not yet filled in, and one afternoon is not enough to fill it. Houston is home to the Bengals on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Kayshon Boutte's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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