For the Patriots, Risk with Diggs May Outweigh the Reward
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They say sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t make, and that may be what ultimately plays out with Stefon Diggs after his visit to New England this week.
Diggs was reportedly in town visiting with the Patriots earlier this week, with things clearly getting serious enough where the former Bills wideout had dinner with the team and followed that up with a physical, both typically moves showing a signing is potentially not far behind.
However, Diggs ultimately left Foxboro without a contract. But the indications by more than one report are that he’s open to coming here, and it’s just a matter of how comfortable Mike Vrabel might be with bringing someone like him into his locker room.
The Patriots are still in need of adding an offensive playmaker this offseason, but whether or not Diggs is that guy might be another story. He’s coming off an ACL injury that saw him miss the final nine games in 2024, ending a streak where he had put up over 1,000 yards receiving for six consecutive seasons before last year. But there’s seemingly a price to pay for having him around, especially after seeing how things played out in Buffalo.
Diggs arrived on the scene in Buffalo in 2018, with the Vikings making a brilliant move by turning Diggs into Justin Jefferson after sending Diggs along with a 7th-round pick to the Bills for their first-round selection and a handful of other picks.
For the Bills, it gave them the explosive playmaker they seemingly needed to pair with their third-year quarterback to potentially get over the hump against the Chiefs. Instead, Diggs became a player who, when he wasn’t getting the football, threw fits on the sideline, becoming a problem that outweighed the yardage he was putting up.
In 2024, with Diggs in Houston, Buffalo saw a drop off in overall offensive production, with quarterback Josh Allen finishing last season below 4,000 yards passing for the first time since 2019. Still, the Bills’ overall win total and average points per game increased last season, going from 11 wins to 13, while averaging 30.9 points-per-game, up from 26.5 in 2023.
More importantly, Allen didn’t have Diggs chirping in his year all last season, and it felt like there was a little less tension on their offense as a whole.
The situation feels a little like Randy Moss’ final season as a member of the New England Patriots before the club dealt him away in 2010 to Minnesota. Moss, who had started to lose a step, was seemingly upset with how little Tom Brady was throwing him the football, along with some frustration about his contract. That included a moment where he and head coach Bill Belichick had words that week prior to the deal being done, ending the former wideout’s tenure with the Patriots.
The move looks even smarter now, as Moss imploded from there. Following a 28-18 loss to New England at Gillette Stadium, Moss threw his new team under the bus, while going on to say he how much he “missed the hell” out of his old teammates.
“It was hard for me to come here and play,” said Moss after the game. “It has been an up-and-down roller-coaster emotionally all week. Then to be able to come in here and see those guys and running plays that I know what they’re doing. The success they had on the field – the running game – so I kind of know what type of feeling they have in their locker room and I just want to be able to tell the guys that I miss the hell out of them, every last helmet in that locker room.”
However, there was a comment he made during that exchange that clearly didn’t set well with then-head coach, Brad Childress as Moss claimed he tried to warn coaches that week about what New England might do, and he implied they didn’t listen.
“I tried to prepare; tried to talk to the coaches and players about how this game was going to be played – a couple tendencies here and a couple tendencies there,” explained Moss. “But the bad part about it, you have six days to prepare for a team and on the seventh day, that’s Sunday, meaning today, I guess they come over to me and say, ‘Dang Moss, you were right about a couple plays and a couple schemes that they were going to run.'”
Those comments seemingly angered Childress enough that the Vikings waived him the next day.
At the end of the day, the Patriots are a young team with a new head coach trying to instill a new culture. As nice as having Diggs might be, they may not be ready for that type of personality just yet, and the fact Diggs wasn’t signed also leads you to believe the Patriots aren’t sure, either. Until then, he might instead be a “Plan B” as New England continues exploring its options.
For now, the hope is that they’ll find someone to provide a spark to a group that’s certainly in need of one, and despite the meeting with Diggs, they’re obviously still looking. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that Tyler Lockett is someone who could be on the Patriots radar, and while Lockett may not be quite as productive as Diggs, he may also be less of a headache.
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