The true impact of the Houston Texans' trade for wide receiver Stefon Diggs will be measured during the upcoming season, measured in concrete numbers like passing yards, touchdowns, and most importantly, wins. For now, we are left to measure the impact by esoteric things like human emotion and conjecture like Vegas betting odds.

While it's been well covered that the Texans are now on the short list of Super Bowl favorites, rising as high as third overall on some odds boards, just behind the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, the latest bit of Vegas odds news is great news for the Texans' second year quarterback C.J. Stroud. According to DraftKings sports book, Stroud is tied for third on the 2024 NFL MVP odds board:

Patrick Mahomes, KC +600
Josh Allen, BUF +800
Joe Burrow, CIN +900
C.J. STROUD, HOU +900
Lamar Jackson, BAL +1000
Jordan Love, GB +1200
Brock Purdy, SF +1200
Justin Herbert, LAC +1400
Jalen Hurts, PHI +1500
Dak Prescott, DAL +1500
Aaron Rodgers, NYJ +1600
Tua Tagovailoa, MIA +2200
Trevor Lawrence, JAC +2500
Matthew Stafford, LAR +3000
Anthony Richardson, IND +3500
Christian McCaffrey, SF +3500
Kirk Cousins, ATL +3500
Jared Goff, DET +4000
Kyler Murray, ARZ +5000
Caleb Williams, CHI +5000
Deshaun Watson, C:V +6000
Justin Fields, PIT +6500

A few thoughts on this fun development:

Oddly enough, the QB from the team who traded away Diggs remains ahead of Stroud
Despite having his number one wide receiver traded away last week, and being stuck with a wide receiver depth chart that has Curtis Samuel sitting atop it, Josh Allen is still second on the MVP board behind Patrick Mahomes. Personally, I think the Bills are going to be in a soft reset this season, and fall back to eight or nine wins, which means Allen's MVP chances would be dead.

Oh man, if you need another metric to measure the dichotomy between Stroud and Bryce Young....
C.J. Stroud was the second pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. His team won 10 games, won a playoff game, and he won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award. As mentioned above, he sits at +900 (essentially, 9 to 1) to win the MVP award this season. Bryce Young was the only player selected ahead of Stroud. His team won two games, his head coach was fired after 10 games, and they have no first round pick in the upcoming draft, because they traded it for Young. Young's MVP odds are +18000, or 180 to 1. Life comes at you pretty fast.

Hey, Deshaun Watson.... how's Cleveland?!
Speaking fo life coming at you pretty fast, the biggest salary cap hit in the league belongs to Deshaun Watson, who counts about $64 million against the Cleveland Browns' cap this coming season. He is coming off of right shoulder surgery. Watson wanted out of Houston back in 2021, because the franchise was so poorly run at the time. He is +6000, or 60 to 1, to win MVP. How's Cleveland treating you, Deshaun?

Other Texans on whom you can get some betting action
If you're looking to through a sawbuck down on some Texans long shots for league MVP, here you go:

Nico Collins +30000
Stefon Diggs +30000
Will Anderson, Jr. +40000
Tank Dell +50000
Joe Mixon +100000
Danielle Hunter +100000

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