DeAndre Hopkins, Cecil Shorts' Fantasy Outlook After Brian Hoyer Injury

The Houston Texans emerged from Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Bengals with a 10-6 victory, but they lost their starting quarterback in the process.

Brian Hoyer left the contest with a concussion, although T.J. Yates played the role of hero when he led the Texans down the field for their one touchdown of the game. It was a momentary sigh of relief for fantasy owners who started DeAndre Hopkins in Week 10.

Yates has never started more than six games in a single season throughout his career, and he only had three touchdowns to seven interceptions before Monday’s game. Those totals should terrify fantasy owners relying on Houston wide receivers, such as Hopkins and Cecil Shorts, especially since Hoyer has put up decent numbers this season with 13 touchdowns and four interceptions.

Still, Hopkins is an absolute superstar, and that won’t change with a potential quarterback change. The same cannot be said about Shorts, but he wasn't a safe fantasy option even before Hoyer's injury.

Here is a look at the final tallies for the two pass-catchers from Monday’s victory as well as some fantasy reaction for each.

Catches	Receiving Yards	Touchdowns	Targets	Fantasy Points
5	57	1	11	11.7

Hopkins has four games with more than 100 receiving yards on the season and reached at least 50 every single time he took the field in 2015. He also has seven touchdown catches, including four in his last four games, and is clearly one of the best pass-catchers in the league.

That was on full display Monday when he virtually won the game for the Texans with an insane one-handed catch in the end zone on Yates' throw. However, Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk passed along the most important number for fantasy purposes:

Yes, those largely came with Hoyer at the helm, but Yates said, "If all else fails, throw it up to Hop," after Monday's game when discussing strategy, per NFL Network.

Yates understands what makes this Houston offense tick, especially without superstar running back Arian Foster in the backfield. Hopkins is the best playmaker at the Texans' disposal, and he faces a handful of enticing matchups down the stretch of the season:

Week	Team	Pass Defense Rank
12	New Orleans Saints	30th
14	New England Patriots	22nd
15	Indianapolis Colts	28th
17	Jacksonville Jaguars	24th

The combination of a go-to receiver who gets double-digit targets every game against vulnerable secondaries like that is fantasy gold. Hopkins is a must-start even with Yates at signal-caller.

Catches	Receiving Yards	Touchdowns	Targets	Fantasy Points
3	16	0	7	1.6

Shorts will also face those secondaries, but he doesn’t have the raw skill set or designation as the No. 1 receiver to fall back on like Hopkins.

However, he has an underrated track record with three straight seasons of more than 500 receiving yards, including 979 yards and seven touchdowns in 2012 with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite those numbers, he is something of an afterthought for the Texans this year.

Shorts only has one touchdown and hasn’t reached the century mark in yardage a single time. In fact, he only reached 65 yards once, and that came in a blowout loss against the Atlanta Falcons.

The production just hasn’t been there this season, and that likely won’t change with a potential switch at quarterback. What’s more, Hopkins is hogging the target totals (for good reason), Nate Washington has better numbers across the board than Shorts as a secondary option and Yates seems ready to look Hopkins' way given those postgame quotes.

Shorts isn’t worth a fantasy start at this point of the season.