MAQB: Revisiting the Bills Trade for Stefon Diggs – Sports Illustrated

A normal Monday, with just one game to close out the week. Here we go …

• After a 10-catch, 130-yard effort on the big Sunday Night Football stage, it’s worth taking a look back now at the Stefon Diggs trade—and why the Bills had faith to take the plunge on a guy who was at times seen as a malcontent in Minnesota. Back in the spring, we went over Buffalo’s rapid pursuit, the compensation and the financials, but we only touched briefly on how Sean McDermott, Brandon Beane and the Buffalo brass got Diggs vetted to the point where they saw him as a culture fit. First, they had something of a mole. Beane’s college scouting director, Terrance Gray, was an area scout for the Vikings when Diggs was drafted and through his first couple years in the league, which gave Buffalo a pipeline into how the receiver was viewed inside the Vikings’ facility. Second, they had connections to people with intimate ties to Diggs. One was Maryland coach Mike Locksley, who recruited Diggs to College Park and was his offensive coordinator for his three years as a Terp. And what came back through all those sources was consistent: Trust would be important, and the Bills would always have to be straightforward with Diggs. But they’d be getting a guy who was competitive and with a practice intensity that recalled Steve Smith, for the handful of scouts and coaches on the Bills staff who were in Carolina before coming to Buffalo. And as for whether he’d rock the boat, word came back that Diggs could be a problem if you were both losing and he wasn’t seeing the ball, but likely wouldn’t be otherwise. So the Bills added it up, saw their program as ready to invest in that kind of player and person, and it’s fair to say that the leap of faith has paid off handsomely.

• While we’re on the Bills, one thing I’ve heard strongly is that coaches and scouts in the organization are championing the cause of defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier for head coaching jobs in the 2021 cycle. Frazier only lasted three years in charge in Minnesota in his first go-round as a head coach. He made the playoffs in Year 2, but couldn’t overcome the decision to take Christian Ponder with the 12th pick in 2011, and was fired after the Vikings went 5–10–1 in 2013. Frazier, for his part, was beloved by the players there (he got a standing ovation after the news he was being let go), and is beloved by the guys in Buffalo too. The Bills were pretty disappointed in Frazier not landing any interviews last year, to the point where owner Kim Pegula—who serves on diversity committees in both the NFL and NHL, and has been a huge advocate of Frazier’s—had decided to bring Frazier to the league meeting last March to meet other owners. Obviously, that meeting was canceled, but the gesture stood out to those in the Bills organization, and Pegula and Frazier wound up sitting together on an NFL panel on diversity later in the spring. So it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. The one strike against Frazier is age (he’s 61). But my guess is that if teams dig into what other coaches and players think of him, they’ll be plenty intrigued. Also, good on Pegula for working to get Frazier in front of other owners. I’ve talked to lots of Black coaches over the last year about networking being an important, sometimes missing piece that the NFL needs to work on to fill the diversity gap.

• One more on Diggs. This one’s only tangentially related. Last year, when the Texans were looking to move DeAndre Hopkins, rumblings of a Hopkins-for-Stefon Diggs deal bubbled up briefly. The Vikings weren’t interested, for a variety of reasons (money was a big one.) Instead,. Minnesota wound up with a draft-pick haul for Diggs, and the first-round pick became Justin Jefferson. Would the Vikings do it all over again? One hundred times out of one hundred. Why? Here are the salary cap numbers ahead for the 28-year-old Hopkins, who’s at $7.006 million for this year: $12.5 million , $25.05 million, $27.2 million, $22.67 million. And here are the cap numbers ahead for the 21-year-old Jefferson, who’s at $2.39 million for this year: $2.98 million, $3.58 million, $4.18 million. On the season, Hopkins has 94 catches for 1,155 yards and five touchdowns. Jefferson has 65 catches for 1,078 yards and seven touchdowns. And that’s taking nothing away from Hopkins. But it does illustrate the value of draft picks. Yes, relying on them is riskier than bringing in a proven vet. But the payoff can be felt for years to come.

• Lost a little in the Chase Young breakout—and we wrote about the Washington rookie’s big afternoon in the MMQB column—is how his bookend played, again. A couple people from the Football Team pointed it out to me on Monday morning, and told me to dig up the pressure stats. So I reached out to the good people at Pro Football Focus, and they gave me a good idea of the tear that Montez Sweat is on. Since Week 11, the second-year former first-rounder has the third-highest overall grade (88.1) among edge defenders league-wide, with nine total pressures, three tackles for loss (or no gain), and eight tackles in run defense (the latter two numbers rank top 10 at his position). And remember, for as much of a cyborg as Young is, Sweat’s pretty freaky himself—he ran 4.41 at 260 pounds. Which is to say Washington’s going to be pretty scary for years to come at that position. Sweat’s 24, Young’s 21, and the two cost a combined $9 million against the team’s 2020 cap. Throw in all the other first-round defensive linemen, and there’s a nice little foundation for Ron Rivera to build on in D.C.

• Over the last week, Cowboys QB Andy Dalton had to downplay his return to Cincinnati, his home for the first nine years of his NFL career. But a day removed, and with time to reflect, Dalton did appreciate the shot to go back so soon after his departure. That was clear when he and I went back and forth on it on Monday morning. “The win felt really good,” he texted. “It was a lot of fun for me to be back in Cincinnati and see everybody from players, coaches, equipment staff, trainers. To get a win against a team I played for for a long time was special. Mike [McCarthy] and the players made it a big deal so that meant a lot.” A bunch of people have said it over the last 24 hours, but Dalton really is one of the good guys. So it was cool to see him have yesterday, in what’s been a really different chapter of his career.

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• It’s at least interesting to see the Jaguars shuffle quarterbacks this late in the game, with Doug Marrone going back to Gardner Minshew after Jacksonville had just five first downs and 99 yards on seven possession behind starter Mike Glennon, and then deciding Monday to stick with Minshew. At this point, realistically, the Jags are one of two teams alive for the first pick (the Jets would have to go 3–0 for the Bengals to have a shot at it), and actually currently hold the tiebreaker over the Jets—their strength of schedule is slightly worse (.546-.599, per tankathon.com). That gives them a shot at Trevor Lawrence and at worst, barring a 2–1 flourish, position to take Justin Fields. So why would they make a quarterback change now? Marrone, given his job security, can’t worry about 2021. And to this point, he’s done a good job keeping a bad team locked in, so I’d trust him that Minshew’s work in practice has been sellable to the rest of the locker room.

• The stat of the week has to be 18. That’s the number of carries Jalen Hurts had Sunday against the Saints. That’s twice as many as Carson Wentz has had in any of his 68 career starts—he actually set a career high with nine (for 65 yards) against the Bengals in September—and Wentz’s mobility was considered a bona fide strength when he came out in 2016. To me, that shows two things. One, what Philly had to do to make the offense work for Hurts on short notice. And two, how the Saints might’ve been caught a little off-guard. New Orleans coaches found themselves combatting far more designed quarterback runs on the ground, and way more quick-game passing through the air. The concepts, of course, weren’t out of nowhere. But the way the game was called by Philly’s coaches was much different. It’ll be interesting to see how this looks in Arizona on Sunday, with the Cardinals having the benefit of seeing the adjusted scheme on tape.

• New Raiders defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli is pretty likely to simplify the Vegas defense a bunch—it’s who he’s been as a coach in the past—and the hope organizationally is it’ll get a young defense playing faster. So it’ll be important for the decision-makers to see if that helps get more out of players like Trayvon Mullen, Maxx Crosby, Clelin Ferrell and Johnathan Abram.

• Here’s what Sam Darnold said when he was asked if he wants to stay a Jet: “I love it here. I love the people, I love living here. I’ve always said I want to be a Jet for life. That decision isn’t necessarily up to me. But that’s how I feel.” The funny thing is, he actually does have some control over it. If he can manage a single win, it could cost the Jets the first overall pick. And then, for the team, the quarterback decision goes from to an easy one (take Trevor Lawrence) to something much more complicated.

• I’m excited to watch Baker Mayfield Monday night, and I think there’s at least reason for hope that what Browns fans saw last week was real. We mentioned this in discussing Aaron Rodgers in the MMQB column, and it’s true—quarterbacks playing in the Shanahan offense tend to make big leaps toward the end of Year 1 in it and right into Year 2. It happened with Matt Ryan in Atlanta, Jared Goff in L.A. and now even Rodgers in Green Bay. Maybe, just maybe, last week was the start of something along those lines with Mayfield.