Diggs will carry $31.096 million in dead money for the Bills, a record for a non-QB by about $4 million. The prior record was for an in-season trade where salary was picked up by the team. The team will lose about $4 million in net cap space with the trade. Diggs was originally under contract in 2022 and 2023 and the new contract signed by the Bills wound up giving a raise of just under $20.9 million for those two seasons. They could have walked free and clear had they not signed the extension. Now they will have paid that extra money to come back with a 2nd round pick while also giving up a 6th and a 5th which makes this an incredibly expensive trade.
This seems to be an interesting take on the trade.
If I'm understanding it correctly, when they say the "net" cap hit is $4M they are saying that it is $4M more hit than if they had just kept Diggs.
The end result is they have Diggs's old cap on an accelerated basis (spread all future hits over two seasons), and don't have Diggs.
They do get a 2nd, but it's
next year's second, while they give up this year's 6th and next year's 5th.
So they lose the player Diggs and a late draft pick this year and next yet while still having Digg's salary on their cap on an accelerated basis.
Whatever lotto pick the 6th represented is gone for this season, and a lotto pick next season too, with a hope that next year's 2nd hits.
Meanwhile they have a position to fill this year and a cap hit spread across this season and next.
IMO the Sportrac piece undersells how bad a deal this is from Buffalo's perspective.
This means that Buffalo REALLY wanted to move on from Diggs and this was the best deal they could find.
This highlights the idea that BUF knows their window is now closed and they're getting rid of expensive players now hoping they can get better in the future.