Let’s revisit some stuff
All things considered, it seems like a good time to revisit Stefon Diggs’ Bills exit, right? Everyone’s moved on appropriately: the Bills look like one of the best teams in the NFL, Josh Allen looks like the runaway MVP candidate right now, and Diggs is fitting in nicely down in Houston with the Texans. As much of a cliche as it is, sometimes everyone really just does need a change of scenery.
That’s what makes Week 5’s Bills-Texans matchup so fascinating. There really isn’t the “revenge game” element that you’d normally see here – everyone has seemed nice and content to move on with their lives. Or, at the very least, they’re all good at keeping real feelings out of the spotlight.
ESPN won’t have it, though. The people need storylines, and ESPN delivered. On Wednesday, they published a (very long) story from NFL reporter Jeremy Fowler about Diggs’ departure. A lot of it is just recounting Diggs’ Tweets from the last couple years, but the occasional juicy detail or two does emerge along the way.
Latest Stefon Diggs reporting details ugly split from Bills in 2023
“Where it went wrong between Diggs and the Bills is not a question that yields a single answer from more than a dozen team, front office and industry sources ESPN contacted for this story. The player is famously mercurial. The team’s level of patience with his personality ebbed and flowed. The offense was headed in a different direction. The ratio of the impact of these three causes on Diggs’ exit depends on who’s doing the talking.”
There are tons of juicy quotes in the story, a lot of which deal with the relationship between Diggs and Josh Allen. In case it wasn’t abundantly obvious at the time, losing to the Chiefs every year put a strain on their relationship! And all those videos of them disagreeing on the sideline were, in fact, disagreements and not just teammates making each other better (steam-face emoji).
Ultimately, the piece paints Diggs as a hard-working superstar who can get under people’s skin at times, which is basically what every single story about a star wide receiver has been about. There’s literally even a quote about how nothing he did really surprised anyone, because that’s just how wide receivers act.
Come for the new juicy anecdotes, stay for the long-winded explanation of why the Bills are probably better off without him. Not unlike trading Diggs to the Texans, it’s a win-win for everyone.