Diggs' Drama

[Alphadawg7]

2 hours ago, mannc said:

Normally, I would agree with this, but in the fifth round of the 2023 draft, Beane was obviously in the market for a WR.  By that time, about 20 WRs were already off the board, and two of the ones left were Shorter, a lifetime practice squad level player, and Puka Nacua, a literal Hall of Fame talent at the same position…and Beane picked the scrub…it’s absolutely fair to rip him for that.

Then you need to rip the other 32 GMs, including Rams, for passing on him many times on his way to falling from what should have been an easy top 5 pick to 5th round.  
 

 

Edited 15 hours ago by Alphadawg7

[Pete]

11 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Diggs was still a Bill in that draft and no one had any idea Puka was gonna be what he is.  If they did he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did making all 32 GMs, even the rams, look like fools for not taking him sooner

And what has Kyle Williams done?  

28.7 yards per reception 

[Augie]

7 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Then you need to rip the other 32 GMs, including Rams, for passing on him many times on his way to falling from what should have been an easy top 5 pick to 5th round.  
 

 

 

Using hindsight like that regarding draft choices is often one indication of a feeble mind, imo. You can almost always find a better choice for any draft slot with the benefit of hindsight. Tom Brady. Case closed. 

[FireChans]

28 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

Using hindsight like that regarding draft choices is often one indication of a feeble mind, imo. You can almost always find a better choice for any draft slot with the benefit of hindsight. Tom Brady. Case closed. 

Is the counterpoint that Keon Coleman wasn’t actually a bad pick, because he was projected to go around the early second round, and it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we say we should have drafted McConkey?

 

Should the Browns or Jets or Cardinals GMs not feel bad because it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that they should’ve taken Josh or Lamar over Baker, Darnold and Rosen? 
 

Doesn’t feel right to me.

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

Is the counterpoint that Keon Coleman wasn’t actually a bad pick, because he was projected to go around the early second round, and it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we say we should have drafted McConkey?

 

Should the Browns or Jets or Cardinals GMs not feel bad because it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that they should’ve taken Josh or Lamar over Baker, Darnold and Rosen? 
 

Doesn’t feel right to me.

that’s the draft man.  Literally every GM ever has blundered several times.  Most blunder several times in each draft.  
 

Who’s the best GM?  Howie drafted Reagor or Jefferson (amongst others). We could go on and on debating both sides of the argument.  
 

Make a mistake, move on.  If a GM feels bad years later, they shouldn’t be a GM.  It’s the business.  The nfl draft isn’t all about talent and coaching them up.  it’s hard to know exactly the type of person that you’re drafting.  The person is who will fail or succeed.  Tough to dig that deep and get all true answers.  

 

 

[FireChans]

33 minutes ago, NewEra said:

that’s the draft man.  Literally every GM ever has blundered several times.  Most blunder several times in each draft.  
 

Who’s the best GM?  Howie drafted Reagor or Jefferson (amongst others). We could go on and on debating both sides of the argument.  
 

Make a mistake, move on.  If a GM feels bad years later, they shouldn’t be a GM.  It’s the business.  The nfl draft isn’t all about talent and coaching them up.  it’s hard to know exactly the type of person that you’re drafting.  The person is who will fail or succeed.  Tough to dig that deep and get all true answers.  

 

 

So we just throw out GMs draft records because it's all hindsight and everyone misses occasionally?  Is that right?

Edited 4 hours ago by FireChans

[TheFunPolice]

Maybe this is the week Diggs starts showing up Maye after he drops passes 

[Alphadawg7]

3 hours ago, Pete said:

28.7 yards per reception 

 

The amount of over the top nonsense you insist on posting to manipulate your bias is unreal.  He has FIVE career catches, and 1 was 72 yards skewing his YPC.  And for a team that has bigger WR needs than we do with an MVP candidate QB...he has FIVE catches.  

 

You make it so hard to have a real conversation with this kind of stuff

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Alphadawg7

[finn]

10 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Then you need to rip the other 32 GMs, including Rams, for passing on him many times on his way to falling from what should have been an easy top 5 pick to 5th round.  
 

 

True, but you could say the same for almost ever player and GM in draft history, since none of them traded their entire draft to pick Tom Brady and other the other HOF players. That doesn't mean GMs are beyond criticism. I think Beane's done a good job overall given the draft position he has to work with every year, but there's no question he and his staff are deficient in their WR evaluations, to the extent that they should probably bring in new scouts and stage an intervention for Beane. He's striking out looking every draft, waiting for the perfect pitch then whiffing when he does swing. 

[NewEra]

38 minutes ago, FireChans said:

So we just throw out GMs draft records because it's all hindsight and everyone misses occasionally?  Is that right?

looking back at the draft in hindsight and discussing missing on a 5th rd pick is just dumb.  Every GM in the league took an L on Nacua, even Snead took Stetson Bennett, nick hampton, Warren McClendon and Davis Allen before him.  
He was the 20th WR taken.  
 

We took Shorter ahead of Nacua. it was a bad choice.  I’m sure Beane has though, I wish I took Puka over Shorter… but I’ll never look at a rd 5-7 guy  and say “we could’ve had X player l, but we took Y player instead”.  The same could be said for every GM.  Said player didn’t have much value according to everyone.   
 

when you hit on a day 3 pick, it’s a win for a GM.  When you miss on one, join the majority 

 

11 minutes ago, finn said:

True, but you could say the same for almost ever player and GM in draft history, since none of them traded their entire draft to pick Tom Brady and other the other HOF players. That doesn't mean GMs are beyond criticism. I think Beane's done a good job overall given the draft position he has to work with every year, but there's no question he and his staff are deficient in their WR evaluations, to the extent that they should probably bring in new scouts and stage an intervention for Beane. He's striking out looking every draft, waiting for the perfect pitch then whiffing when he does swing. 

He’s striking out looking every draft?  🤣 

 

I agreed with everything you said up til then.  Thats just not correct.  

[Figster]

1 hour ago, finn said:

True, but you could say the same for almost ever player and GM in draft history, since none of them traded their entire draft to pick Tom Brady and other the other HOF players. That doesn't mean GMs are beyond criticism. I think Beane's done a good job overall given the draft position he has to work with every year, but there's no question he and his staff are deficient in their WR evaluations, to the extent that they should probably bring in new scouts and stage an intervention for Beane. He's striking out looking every draft, waiting for the perfect pitch then whiffing when he does swing. 

Beane has also traded then Bills WR1 Sammy Watkins away.  More recently Bills WR1 Stephon Diggs away without sufficient replacements.

 

The Bills young GM Brandon Beane has clearly failed in one of the most important positions in football IMO. WR

Edited 2 hours ago by Figster

[Alphadawg7]

10 minutes ago, finn said:

True, but you could say the same for almost ever player and GM in draft history, since none of them traded their entire draft to pick Tom Brady and other the other HOF players. That doesn't mean GMs are beyond criticism. I think Beane's done a good job overall given the draft position he has to work with every year, but there's no question he and his staff are deficient in their WR evaluations, to the extent that they should probably bring in new scouts and stage an intervention for Beane. He's striking out looking every draft, waiting for the perfect pitch then whiffing when he does swing. 

 

Again, I will ask the original question.  What WR did they miss on since they trade Diggs?  Coleman and every outside WR1 drafted all have busted.  The other poster brought up a 5th round WR in a year where we were on the first year a huge extension for Diggs who was still in his twenties and a top 5 WR in the NFL.  

 

This notion they can't evaluate is pretty wild given they have not invested a lot of premium assets in the position becasue they had Diggs.  They found Shakir and Davis on day 3 who exceeded their draft slots by far.  

 

The only other relevant investment was Coleman, yet no other WR taken when we could have taken one has really done more than Coleman, they have all been busts.  The only example is Ladd whose natural position is the slot and that was the one position we already had.  We needed an outside WR and we needed size.  So using hindsight to flame them for not taking a guy that the people complaining also were NOT campaigning for on draft night is pretty silly.  Everyone wanted Legette, Franklin, Adonai, Worthy, etc.  All have been busts.  Even the guys people wanted later have done less than Keon.  

 

First 2 seasons with Beane was clearing out cap, clearing out bad contracts, bad players, bad fits.  Once they had the QB in place, they started looking to build around him and went and got Diggs who was a top 5 WR his tenure here.  They supported him with other quality WR's like Cole, Sanders, Brown, Gabe in those prime Diggs years and then drafted for the future with Shakir as Cole was getting older and on his way out (and hit on that).  Then they extended Diggs to finish his career here while he was still in his 20's.  That relationship ended earlier than intended and conincidentally in a season where they were not going to over pay to keep Davis either.  

 

That left them having to rebuild the whole room outside Shakir in one season, and a season they had a $31M dead money cap hit at the position too, really leaving them only the draft to address it.  Then on top of that, we aged out a lot of veteran leadership as well, so the whole draft became the first mini retool since Allen arrived as we had to address a lot of positions.  

 

And despite all that, the offense went out and put up the single greatest offensive season in Bills history and one that was historically good.  That same offense averaged 29 PPG over 3 games in the playoffs against 3 of the best defenses in the AFC last year and Josh got his first MVP. 

 

All that being said - as I previous mentioned - my mindset is everyone should be fired if we don't win a SB this year.  At some point you need to just make a change.  So I am not here to say they are perfect or need to say.  But this ranting without context that goes on daily here just gets so old.  Especially when all those people wanted other players who were also busts or they want to play the hindsight game and make a big deal about a 5th round WR when we had a top 5 WR who just signed a large extension to retire here.  

 

 

[Pete]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

The amount of over the top nonsense you insist on posting to manipulate your bias is unreal.  He has FIVE career catches, and 1 was 72 yards skewing his YPC.  And for a team that has bigger WR needs than we do with an MVP candidate QB...he has FIVE catches.  

 

You make it so hard to have a real conversation with this kind of stuff

 

5 catches in ROOKIE year.  He’s 5th WR on a pretty stacked WR room.  Diggs-Boutte-Hollins—Douglas-Chism.  A stacked TE room with Henry and Hooper.  Kyle Williams is making plays when his number is called.  They have been trying to get him more involved. He’s been making highlight catches, and impressing on kick returns. https://www.si.com/nfl/patriots/onsi/news/new-england-patriots-kyle-williams-turning-heads-new-kick-returner

 

I know how you need to get the last word in A.D. and love to say no, I’m right, you are wrong.  
 

Kyle Williams not good blah blah whatever.

Don’t you think Kyle Williams would improve the Bills?  4.4 speed is one major skillset the Bills is missing.  The Texans played press the whole game.  We could use him as a returner.  
 

Don’t you agree Kyle Williams would of been a much, much better draft pick then Landon Jackson?

 

and I’m jealous of the Pats WR room.  Forget Diggs, give Josh Boutte, Williams, Hollins, Douglas- Josh passing numbers would skyrocket 
 

I don’t think we need WR room loaded with a superstars.  Just WRs who can open (and catch).

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Pete

[finn]

47 minutes ago, NewEra said:

looking back at the draft in hindsight and discussing missing on a 5th rd pick is just dumb.  Every GM in the league took an L on Nacua, even Snead took Stetson Bennett, nick hampton, Warren McClendon and Davis Allen before him.  
He was the 20th WR taken.  
 

We took Shorter ahead of Nacua. it was a bad choice.  I’m sure Beane has though, I wish I took Puka over Shorter… but I’ll never look at a rd 5-7 guy  and say “we could’ve had X player l, but we took Y player instead”.  The same could be said for every GM.  Said player didn’t have much value according to everyone.   
 

when you hit on a day 3 pick, it’s a win for a GM.  When you miss on one, join the majority 

 

He’s striking out looking every draft?  🤣 

 

I agreed with everything you said up til then.  Thats just not correct.  

I meant just on wide receivers. Shavers and Shakir were nice late-round picks, but otherwise Beane is passing or whiffing on WR picks, hence my metaphor of the picky batter passing up not just players that fell to him, like Metcalf, Adams, Pickens, Nacua, and McConkey, but also not trading up for players within reach. I realize you need a trading partner, but every year since he drafted Allen, I've wanted Beane to trade up for a receiver who can help him. For example, I was dying that he sat pat in 2023 when teams picked Smith-Njigba, Zay Flowers, and Jordan Addison. He traded up for Kincaid instead, which has worked out ok, but the WR was a problem then and is getting to be a bigger problem every year. 

 

I'm not saying anything new. I just hope Beane a) prioritizes wide receiver next year; and b) figures out why he has repeatedly missed on the position. 

[Beck Water]

On 12/12/2025 at 12:06 PM, Figster said:

 The close friendship/ relationship between Allen and Diggs soured IMO.  

 

I always felt as though that "close friendship" was a bit of a PR creation.  I could be wrong, but they just seemed like different guys with different interests off field.

I think it's true that Allen did reach out to Diggs when the trade was announced and try to build rappore over video games and stuff.  But when they were both in the same city on the same team, I don't think they were hanging out together outside the team facilities very much.  I think Allen is more "let's have the guys over to hang out, drink beer, and watch football" and Diggs is more interested in nightclubbing and expensive single malt scotch.  Allen loves playing golf in his spare time. Diggs is interested in fashion design.  I could be wrong of course, but we never heard anything about Diggs traveling to southern Cali to work out with Josh or vice versa.  When there was a publicized off-season workout it was in Tennessee, near Nashville to be easy for Knox to make it to around wedding plans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FireChans]

49 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

What WR did they miss on since they trade Diggs

George Pickens.

 

Deebo Samuel.

 

DK Metcalf.

 

Brian Thomas Jr.

 

All would be WR1 by a mile. 

50 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

That left them having to rebuild the whole room outside Shakir in one season, and a season they had a $31M dead money cap hit at the position too, really leaving them only the draft to address it

Complete falsehood. 
 

They gave Curtis Samuel 3 years $39M that offseason. 
 

It was just a completely horrific deal.

[benderbender]

Diggs beat Josh to fatherhood. I assume based on the thread that Beane is probably to blame for that too. 

[Augie]

12 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

Then you need to rip the other 32 GMs, including Rams, for passing on him many times on his way to falling from what should have been an easy top 5 pick to 5th round.  
 

 

 

I’m quoting this…… because I can.

 

The draft is a crap shoot, and we only admit that when it suits us. Nobody gets them all right, you just hope to do better than most, more often than not. Every team has busts, even in the early rounds. I honestly think the football side with game tape and all that type of evaluation is almost an impossible way to judge players, if used in a vacuum. It’s obviously the HUGE part of it, but you have to know the person. What motivates them? That’s a big reason the draft is so difficult, and all teams have busts. 

[Nihilarian]

First of all, not every player who enters the NFL becomes a star right away. Some take years to learn and develop; that's just the way it is, so all this talk of what a bum Keon Coleman is as a second-round pick is lame. Some Bills fans here talk like he was a top ten pick, and even those don't always pan out.

 

Some have mentioned Eric Moulds, a first-round pick (#24) who took three years to start shining. In his first two seasons, he had less than 300 yards receiving each year. Then boom, a few 1k seasons.

 

In regard to Diggs, the guy was a diva in the Bills locker room and wanted every pass thrown his way. When that didn't happen, he had a bad attitude and hissy fits. The guy was great at first in Buffalo, and few DBs could contain him as he would literally juke them outta their cleats. As time went on, he wasn't as good against the better defenses and would earn his yards against the lesser teams. Then came the playoffs, and he became invisible.

 

in 2020, he had 1535 yards, 8 TDs. In the playoffs that year, against the Colts, 128 yards, 1 TD. Against the Ravens, 106 yards, 1 TD. Against the Chiefs, 77 yards.

 

In 2021, he had 1225yards, 10 TDs. In the playoffs that year, against the Patriots, 60 yards. Against the Chiefs, 6 targets, 3 receptions for 7 yards!!!! POOF

 

In 2022, he had 1429 yards, 11 TDs. In the playoffs that year, against the Dolphins 114 yards. Against the Bengals, 10 targets, 4 receptions for 45 yards!!! POOF

 

In 2023, he had 1183 yards, 8 TDs. In the playoffs that year, against Pittsburgh 9 targets, 7 receptions for 52 yards. against the Chiefs, 8 targets, 3 receptions for 21 yards!!! POOF

 

So, basically, in the biggest games of the season where his play mattered the most, he disappeared. There was a real reason as to why Brandon Beane had the team eat 31 million in money charges.