Beck Water

Well...it depends upon what the team's goal is, No? Diggs wasn't playing like a #1, and the Bills offense was #6 and we had to win out at the end of the year to make the playoffs, and as you point out....Diggs did not have great contributions in the playoff games. So if the team wants to go any further this season, Beane has to *improve on* Digg's production in 2024.

Negative. Texans voided remaining years of his contract after this year https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/houston-texans/stefon-diggs-16872/

I don't think anyone was arguing that he wasn't potentially a good deal for the receiving team. He's somewhere between a reasonable ROI (if you think he's now a #17 or #18 WR) and a bargain (if you think he's a very talented #1). You can tell that by the fact that Houston is willing to sweeten his pot with an additional $3.5M. It's the Bills end of the bargain, the fact that the Bills will be assuming $31M dead cap AND leaving a giant WR skill shortage on their team, that folks like myself and Cover1 opined made him untradeable. The wild card is that apparently, for reasons not entirely apparent outside OBD but the subject of endless speculation, the Bills wanted his space more than they wanted his skill.

He did not give money back to them. The opposite - they gave extra guaranteed money, from next year, to him. The Texans are definitely giving him the red carpet, "I am a #1 WR, woo me" guy. It's very puzzling to see the disparity between that, various pundit takes, and listening to Cosell on OBD - who is not a Bills shill, he is "Facts on Tape"

The Texans were never locked into keeping Diggs after this year, but Diggs was locked into playing for the Texans for 3 more years if they wanted him to.

In your day job, do you write soap operas? Of COURSE the Bills, who like every other team sequester their players in a hotel the night before a game with a few select players allowed the privilege to go home, would allow Josh Allen to go home and throw big parties at his house the night before home games. Give Me A Break.

When did we ever see him on the right side? He played like, 3 snaps on the R side against the Giants. Let's wait and see what the contract actually is. Key points are how much is guaranteed, how much is salary, and what are the incentives. Spencer Brown is set to be earning $3.585M this season.

No, while the actual formula teams use (just like their pick value formulas for the current year) aren't confidently known, a next year's pick is certainly considered a lower value - and that value is typically considered to equate to "decrease by a round". This isn't something that's just created by whiny fans. I believe the rationale has to do with 1) lost opportunity cost - miss out on acquiring someone you can develop THIS season 2) increased uncertainty - this season teams know exactly where the draft pick is, what positions they need, what talent is available in the draft. Next year, teams don't know exactly where the draft pick is, what positions they will need, or what talent will be available.

Yeah, it's an interesting contradiction. According to Cosell, he's not any longer a #1 WR, he's more of a "possession receiver", and he is NOT going to Houston to be their #1 WR. According to "Speak", Pat Macafee etc, he's going to Houston to be #1 on their depth chart, they don't really think Nico Collins is a true #1 WR despite his 73.4% catch %, his 1297 yds, his 16.2 Y/R, his 86.5 YPG - all numbers better than Diggs with more targets in more games, put up. And, usually when you're paying a guy $22.5M fully guaranteed for a 1 year rental, you expect to be using him A Lot. On the other hand, last season, Nico Collins gave them A Lot and he certainly doesn't deserve to lose any target share or attention. If I'm Houston, I make sure a leetle birdie gives Diggs a transcript of Cosell's interview and another leetle birdie transcribes portions of McAfee and McCoy for Collins. I mean you can think whatever you like - I can too, and I personally think we didn't get enough for Diggs (given that like everyone else, I don't know what it's like between him and Allen or inside the walls of OBD) - but what evidence do you have to support the idea that 1) we left a better offer on the table ? 2) Diggs didn't go to the highest bidder ?

I think you can assume that Houston offered the best deal. I don't know if Diggs had a trade approval clause in his contract - they're pretty rare - but if he did, that would factor in too. If you haven't, go on Youtube and listen to Greg Cosell on OBD. He is not a Bills employee, he's an analyst and senior producer at NFL Films, and widely respected around the league for his film breakdowns. TL;DL: with no reason to be civil towards a Bills player on a Bills show, Cosell amplified on things he's previously implied during the season. He made it pretty clear he thinks the Bills traded Diggs to Houston because no other team was interested or offered in the same range.

I personally would have thought Van Demark >> apparently washed up La'al Collins, but we'll see.

Eh. It was one of our remaining holes or positions that lack depth: backup OT. He'll get to show if his back is healthy and if he's returned from the ACL/MCL he suffered late in the 2022 season. He hasn't played a regular season snap since. Spent last season on the PS. I wouldn't have thought he was a "process guy", but maybe they think he's learned something since 2021

Not quite correct. He is due $19M in roster, workout, and salary. His $18.5M salary is fully guaranteed. So if Houston cuts him this season, they owe him $18.5M or whatever fraction of $18.5M he has not yet been paid in per-game salary checks. All right, scratch that. If Houston cuts him this season, they owe him $22.5M or whatever fraction of $22.5M he has not yet been paid in per-game salary checks. Okay, Then.

To me, that's the clincher. In 2020, he was AMAZEBALLS in the playoffs. Deadly. Lights out. In 2021, he was OK against NE but 3 of 6 for 7 yards in the "13 seconds" game. In 2022, when he slumped in the 2nd half of the season, 4 of 10 for 35 yds in the Bengals debacle. In 2023, similar 2nd half slump, 3 of 8 for 21 yards in the KC loss. Once is an occurance, twice could be a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Dude. Does the phrase "over the middle" have meaning for you? Do you actually understand what routes Reed ran and what his role was, on the team? Hint: James Lofton was the boundary. You sure are super selective about how you look at stats.

I would love to be a fly on the wall and know whether that was the plan all along, dating from the post-season player performance review, or if something else has happened. One example of this kind of long term thinking would be when the Bills moved on from Marcell Dareus. There the Bills were, 6 games into the 2017 season. It was obvious that McDermott and Beane were not long-term fans, but he was playing. He'd missed a game when injured, came back, was back up to 57% of the snaps and seemed (to me) to make a difference in gap integrity on run defense. They'd inherited him on a 6 year, $60 million contract extension signed in 2015, so they were on Year 3 of it. All of a sudden, he was off to Jax for a conditional 6th that turned into a 5th round pick while the Bills ate a chunk of dead cap. He played all season for Jax AND arguably helped them beat us in the playoffs (yeah, he had 4 tackles, but that wasn't his job). Beane and McDermott even alluded after the season that McDermott had not necessarily agreed with the decision to trade Dareus when we did - it didn't make our defense better - but "understood the reasoning" after they talked.

Um, no. The Bills would have paid $27M for Diggs on the roster, and then if they cut him next off season, an additional $23M. That's a total of $50M This way, the Bills pay $31M. So they could have kept Diggs, at the cost of an additional $19M against the cap over the next 2 years. The more realistic question is, "is Diggs ROI still worth an extra $19M total over 2 years AND having an extra $23M on the cap next year if we part ways?" Clearly the Bills answer to that question was "Nope!"

There you have it.

I agree, of course, that Von Miller is not a good comparison. The only stats Diggs was top 7 in were targets and receptions. Top 13? Receptions/G 9th. 10th in 1D. 12th in TD. 13th in total yards. But "Every receiving category"? Bzzzt. Y/G? 17th. Y/R? 67th Y/T? 69th Catch %? 111th. Success %? 48th. YBC? 15th YAC? 31st Passer rating when targeted? 111th. Of 29 receivers with >1000 yds, he was 23 in drop % and 25th in broken tackles. I'm not trying to say Diggs was horrid, but he was getting paid like a top-5 WR, and his performance, viewed from that lens, wasn't good ROI. On the other hand, for the Texans as maybe the 18th paid WR, he slots in as reasonable ROI if he has a similar season. I think the best logic that's been used on this deal is the chap who pointed out what other, comparable age and performance WR received in trade - which was....wait for it...comparable.

Wow. I think both are probably true to some extent - I don't know that Diggs decline was from his character, but it's a fact that in Denver loss, Diggs played 98% of the snaps and had 3 receptions on 5 targets...for 34 yds. The Jets, 80% of the snaps and even worse, 4 receptions on 8 targets for 27 yds. Philly loss, 6 of 11 for 74 yds, 92% of the snaps. After that, his snap counts were cut back. At the time I thought, they were trying to nurse Diggs through an injury, and maybe they were, who knows? But the bottom line is, other guys got more snaps (who that was, varied from game to game) and the Bills won, without so much contribution from Diggs (or Davis).

This past season, Diggs was NOT getting open against physical man coverage by top CBs like Sneed. It was notable. Give him Kader Kohou and he'd eat him for brunch, of course. In previous seasons, IIRC I read that the Bills were one of the bottom teams for % man because they ate it alive. They didn't even see that much man 2022 IIRC - McKenzie could eat man. I believe I saw this year the Bills faced one of the highest % man coverage. Why? Because they couldn't exploit it.

Pretty much. She was forced to walk it back and grovel, but at the time she said it no one was caught on a hot mic saying "oh, Hey now, that's not how I see it".

Kelce, fair point. McLaurin "seeming to give up"??? Money, yeah, it's business, players will be about the money, that's their side of the business. But going for money, and going "Antonio Brown", are different beasts.

Thanks for all this. Just a little nit, the pick swap is next year's 2nd that Houston received indirectly from the Vikings, but the trade-back is this year's 6th and NEXT YEAR'S 5th (which is considered equivalent to a 6th round pick this year). I kind of wonder if uncertainty about Tank Dell's recovery from his broken leg plays into this - if he's not 100% early in the season, they can put him on a snap count or even IR him and expect more from Diggs, but if Diggs does the mid-season vanishing he's done for the last 2 seasons, Dell should be up to speed and they can cut Diggs snaps, then move on the following year if he beefs. I frankly thought in his presser, Beane seemed a bit nervous and defensive, with good reason. He acknowledged that the team isn't as good right now after the trade: "This is by no means the Bills giving up or trying to take a step back or anything like that. Everything we do, we're trying to win, and we're going to continue to do that. It's April the 3rd, and we'll continue to work on this roster and make sure we're ready to play come September" "I mean, are we better today? Probably not," Beane admitted. "It's a work in progress, and we're going to continue to work on that. I just hope people know I'm competitive as hell, and I ain't giving in, we're going to work through this and continue to look and I'm confident in guys on the roster, and confident in the staff we have upstairs that helps me, that we'll continue to find pieces to add, and we'll be ready to roll when it comes time in September." Did someone on NFL network really express something like "not have to worry about an aging cancerous boat anchor"? Wow if so, Just Wow - do you remember who might have said that?

1929 yds, but what's 71 yds between friends? But let's look at it a bit differently. Dorsey was fired after the Bills fell to 5-5 vs the Broncos. They then went on a 7-1 streak with 1 overtime loss to the Eagles. During that stretch of the season, which featured gameplans and play calling from the same OC we will have next year, Diggs and Davis together contributed a total of 627 yds, plus 73 yds in 2 playoff games. Diggs contributed 1 TD, Davis contributed 2 - including playoffs. Elsewhere, you have been beating the drum loud and repetitively about how Diggs fell off in the 2nd half of the season, comparing him to all sorts of lower tier WR we could have signed for much less. Given that, it's really something to turn coat and gloom-and-doom because the Bills have moved on from two guys who contributed 3 TDs (including in 2 playoff games) and 627 yds over a 7-1 streak. My position all along has been that the whole season counts when assessing a guy's contributions, but C'Mon Man, don't act like Diggs is Chopped Liver in one thread and then tear your hair and smear ashes about after he's traded. It's a valid point that Beane, McDermott, and Joe Brady may have looked at that 7-1 win streak under Brady as OC and said "we can do without 627 yds and 3 TDs contribution".