Grades & Takeaways From The Stefon Diggs Trade

Adam Schefter rocked the NFL world on Wednesday with a report dropped out of the blue that the Bills and Texans had agreed on a blockbuster trade to send star WR Stefon Diggs to Houston. 

It’s not that everyone thought things were rosy between Diggs and the Bills — there had been several comments from the mercurial Diggs that raised eyebrows over the past year. But things had been quiet between the two sides. There were no warning signs that a trade was imminent without the benefit of hindsight. 

Now the Bills are short a No. 1 receiver and the Texans have yet another notable veteran on the roster as part of a busy offseason. The full details of the trade: 

• Bills receive: 2025 2nd (MIN)
• Texans receive: Diggs, 2024 6th (189), 2025 5th

It’s a move that has huge implications for the balance of power in the AFC, with two contending teams seemingly headed in opposite directions. 

Why did the Bills want to trade Diggs, and for so little? 

Perhaps in the coming weeks, we’ll learn more about when things started to go off the rails between Buffalo and Diggs after the pairing started out with so much promise. The Bills traded a package including a first-round pick for Diggs after he chafed in Minnesota with quarterback play he found to be substandard and inconsistent success on the field. Diggs’ arrival coincided with QB Josh Allen’s breakout, and the two tore up the NFL in 2020. Diggs led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards and was named first-team All-Pro. 

He was similarly productive over the next few seasons. When both were hot and locked in, Allen and Diggs could do whatever they wanted on the field. They seemed to be real friends off the field too with real chemistry. The only thing that eluded them and the Bills was postseason success. 

While Diggs remained productive and the Bills largely continued to win, some of the same tensions that drove Diggs out of Minnesota started to crop up. Despite ranking near the top of the league in targets, Diggs would act out on the sideline in some games, most notably the playoff loss to the Bengals that ended the 2022 season. He’d make cryptic comments on social media, sometimes appearing to signal he wanted a trade or that he was frustrated with Allen. 

Things boiled over last year during minicamp with Bills HC Sean McDermott sending Diggs home and making cryptic comments of his own. After that, both sides went out of their way to pour water on anything suggesting discord and things largely went alright to start the 2023 season. Diggs was on pace for a typical season in the first half of the year, and even though Buffalo had some struggles in the win column, Diggs was quiet. His brother, Cowboys CB Trevon Diggs, wasn’t though, suggesting Diggs needed to ask for a trade out of Buffalo. Stefon Diggs never publicly disagreed. 

Although Diggs started the 2023 season on fire, his production dramatically tailed off. In the first eight games of the season, Diggs had double-digit targets in six games and went over 100 yards in five. In the final eight games, he only had double-digit targets twice and never topped 100 yards receiving. 

Add it all up, and the Bills’ decision to trade Diggs starts to make sense. A 30-year-old wideout with declining production and increasing drama off the field is probably not worth $19 million a year in the next two seasons, even if it actually cost the Bills $3.2 million in cap space this year to move on via trade. Buffalo’s willingness to take on that and $31 million in dead money should be a clear sign of how willing the team was to end this relationship. 

How does this impact the Bills, and what’s next at wide receiver? 

Trading Diggs just puts more of an emphasis on what Bills GM Brandon Beane and McDermott have already been clear is a major need at receiver this offseason. Buffalo lost WR Gabriel Davis in free agency this offseason and signed WR Curtis Samuel to replace him. The third starting spot would have been occupied by third-year WR Khalil Shakir, at least until the team drafted someone, but the Diggs trade makes it more likely Shakir starts, at least to open the season. 

In terms of raw production, Samuel can probably replace Davis even though the two are very different players. Davis was like a power forward with his size, strength and run-blocking. He and Allen had real chemistry on throws deep down the field. Samuel is closer to an undersized shooting guard who brings versatility as a schemed touch player with the ball in his hands. He’s fast, which will help open up the offense, but he’s not as good in tight windows as Davis. 

The Bills likely envision 2023 first-round TE Dalton Kincaid being a much bigger part of their offense after making this trade. He had 73 receptions for 673 yards and two touchdowns in his first year, which is pretty strong for a rookie. Other teams like the Chiefs, Ravens and Lions run their passing offense through the tight end, so there’s precedent for Buffalo as long as Kincaid takes a step forward. 

The Bills were likely to be aggressive about getting a receiver in the draft and this trade shouldn’t change anything except perhaps how other teams perceive their need. Buffalo picks at No. 28 in the first round and should have some intriguing options available at that pick. This is viewed as the deepest receiving class in several years. 

However, the Bills are also candidates to make a big jump up the board for a wideout who’s considered more of a sure thing. They have 10 picks this year and just added another Day 2 pick next year. A trade into the top ten would likely cost a future first but it would also potentially give them a core piece to build around Allen for a long, long time. 

In the short term, there’s no getting around that this makes the Bills worse on offense. How big of a step back this truly is will be dictated by how ready to contribute the rookie receiver the Bills draft is. 

How does Diggs fit in with Houston? 

Houston clearly prioritized adding to a receiving corps that already features two young breakout stars in Nico Collins and Tank Dell this offseason. They made a strong offer for WR Keenan Allen before the Chargers traded him to the Bears, and they checked in on a few other players before trading for Diggs. 

On paper, this is an impressive trifecta of wideouts for the Texans to surround star QB C.J. Stroud with. 

*11 games before fracturing ankle

The Texans probably want to be in 11 personnel most of the time with this group. Diggs can play any of the three receiver positions but is at his best at either flanker or the slot. Dell is a similar player in a lot of ways. Collins has the size and strength to live at X receiver. This instantly enters the conversation for one of the best receiving corps in football. 

It will be interesting to see how things play out in reality and whether there are enough targets to go around to keep everyone happy, particularly Diggs. It should help the Texans that he’ll probably want to be on his best behavior in his first year, and that Houston should be a team that wins a lot of games and scores a lot of points with Stroud in 2024. 

You can see potential fault lines, however. As noted above, the splits for Diggs in the first half of the year versus the second were stark. The first half was prime Diggs, an elite No. 1 receiver. The second half was a limited player who was closer to an underneath chain mover than a game-breaking wideout. The Texans likely view Diggs as a No. 1 receiver given his resume and the trade cost, but if his production can’t support that, how happy will either side be with a reduced role? 

The other factor is Collins, who seemingly asserted himself as the Texans’ No. 1 receiver in 2023 and is entering the final year of his contract. This trade says that Houston has significant doubts about both. This also has the potential to get testy if Collins thinks he’s not getting the targets he deserves in a big year for his future. Going forward beyond the 2024 season, it might be challenging for the Texans to keep both Collins and Diggs on the roster even with Stroud on a rookie contract. 

If Diggs wasn’t happy in Buffalo, will he be happy in Houston? 

If the Bills were sick of Diggs enough to trade him, it feels like the sentiment was mutual from the player. You have to twist into a pretzel to translate his various comments and actions over the past few years as anything except discontentment with how things were going in Buffalo. 

But if Diggs wasn’t happy with the Bills, where will he be happy? He had about as sweet a setup as a receiver could hope for with one of the three best quarterbacks in the game right now, one he seemed to have a real relationship with as well. Getting the ball from Allen was hardly ever an issue either. In four years with the Bills, he had 166, 164, 154 and 160 targets. That ranked first, fifth, fifth and sixth in the NFL. 

His contract wasn’t an issue either. Heading into 2022, the Bills gave Diggs a long-term deal with significant guarantees that put him at the top of the receiver market well before they had to. He had two years remaining on his original contract. This season would have been the first on the new deal. 

Diggs was understandably frustrated at not getting over the hump in Buffalo. However, the Bills have had more success than any other team outside of the Chiefs over the past four years. The Bills were 48-18 in the regular season and won the AFC East all four years from 20202-2023. They never got to the Super Bowl, with Kansas City being an infamous foil to their hopes in the postseason. 

With Buffalo hitting the reset button, the Texans do seem to be the team that’s situated best to topple the Chiefs in the AFC — certainly more than the Bills at least. Diggs is landing with another elite quarterback, so perhaps the ingredients are there to keep him happy. 

History says to bet otherwise, though. 

What’s the grade for the Texans? 

Grade: B

Ultimately I think this is a solid trade for the Texans without as much upside as people think and with a lot more downside than they realize. On the surface, adding a player with a resume like Diggs should be a huge boost to any offense. He’s been a top-five, top-three receiver as recently as last season. 

But there are real concerns. Diggs disappeared in the second half of last season, and there wasn’t an obvious cause like an injury to blame. Maybe it was just a blip, but when the end for NFL players comes, it arrives rudely and with little warning. 

The Texans gave up a lot in this trade, sending a second-round pick next year and signing up to pay $19 million in cash in 2024 for a wideout who turns 31 in November. There’s also Diggs’ history of bringing friction to the locker room and sidelines, and there’s potential for that to be an issue with a young quarterback and a guy like Collins who could feel like he’s getting the short end of the stick. 

If the Texans win as much as people think they can in 2024, that should help the honeymoon period last for a while. It seems like when it comes to Diggs, however, it’s just a matter of time until things turn explosive. 

What’s the grade for the Bills?

Grade: B

It’s tough to be ebullient about this outcome for the Bills considering the current state of their receiving corps and the remaining $31 million in dead money on their books. In hindsight, I wonder if Beane regrets extending Diggs when he did, even if it likely would have sparked a divorce sooner.

But that has to be viewed as sunk cost if the Bills saw the future with Diggs as untenable. Buffalo has made a lot of tough decisions to move on from aging and expensive veterans to try and reset financially. In that context, moving on from Diggs makes sense. They freed up future cap flexibility to keep building around Allen and added a premium pick at a discount. 

Allen remains the key. With plenty of picks and a deep group of receivers in the upcoming class, the Bills could remain dynamic and dangerous on offense if they nail a few draft evaluations. Allen should remain an elite quarterback with or without Diggs, as the second half of last season proved. 

Maybe calling this a win-win trade for both sides isn’t fair, but at the very least this is not as lopsided a deal as it appears at face value. The Bills and Texans were negotiating toward different goals and both sides accomplished what they set out to do.