In a perfect world, Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs would have beaten Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs just one time when it really counted. The latest heartbreaker was a 27-24 last-second missed-field-goal loss in January’s AFC divisional round game.
One Super Bowl appearance, win or lose, would probably have prevented what occurred today. The egos of superstar football players require constant feeding and confirmation that the sacrifices they are making and the elite level they feel they are playing at is respected and reaping fruits.
With nothing left to keep them together, the Bills traded the 31-year-old playmaker to the Houston Texans in exchange for a 2025 second round pick (via Vikings).
Both Allen and Diggs are considered among the best in the game at their respective positions, but the pressure to win and the outside noise seems to have gotten the best of Diggs, who was traded to the Houston Texans 22 days ahead of the NFL draft.
Stefon Diggs Traded To Houston Texans
It’s a drastic shift for the franchise, with Stefon Diggs now joining C.J. Stroud in the AFC South. It marks an era of uncertainty for the Bills and automatically boosts the Texans’ credibility as a contender in 2024.
Texans QB C.J. Stroud, who led them to the AFC Championship Game last season as rookie, is smiling ear to ear, while Allen is probably shaking his head but somewhat relieved that a relationship that had deteriorated, mostly due to Diggs and his family’s public disrespect of the QB, was now over.
While Allen loses his most lethal weapon and his biggest pain in the butt, Buffalo has now given itself more financial flexibility for 2025 to replace the production that Diggs took with him out the door. They do, however, endure a dead cap hit of $31 million. This is after Buffalo already paid Diggs $40 million combined over the past two seasons.
Allen and Diggs broke in as stars together in 2020, Allen’s rookie season and Diggs’ first season with the Bills after leaving Minnesota. As early as a 2022 playoff game, when Diggs was seen berating Allen on the sidelines, tension had been brewing between the two. The 2023 playoff loss to the Bengals brought more friction between the two.
In August 2023, Stephen A. Smith said straight up that Allen “Don’t want to be in Buffalo no more.”
Diggs Has Wanted Out Of Buffalo
It was clear as day to everyone, and rumors of a trade have been clouding this team for the past two seasons. Regardless of how good a WR is, the quarterback is the man on every NFL team. Constantly belittling your QB, who is also a huge star and popular with the fan base, is a death move.
Even after they paid him his money, a blockbuster $124 million deal, Diggs wasn’t happy in Buffalo.
Diggs has clearly been trying to force himself out of Buffalo for some time, even using his family as messengers on social media to do it. That’s when he wasn’t gyrating and ranting on the sidelines during crucial moments of games because he’s not getting targeted.
Diggs is smart enough to know that anything he says will be taken literally and social media with run with it. The final straw was probably when former NFL quarterback and analyst Robert Griffin III emphasized Diggs’ importance to Allen’s success in a Tweet.
He called Diggs “essential” to Allen’s performance and highlighted their synergy as a key factor in the Bills’ rise to Super Bowl contenders.
Griffin’s tweet sparked a wild debate, with the Josh Allen fans disagreeing.
One fan suggested that while Allen benefits from having a top-tier receiver, Diggs isn’t “essential.”
That’s when Diggs chimed in with, “You sure?”
Fans became split along pro-Allen and pro-Diggs lines. There were fans who felt Diggs was overrated anyway and was never a top-tier talent despite his gaudy numbers (107 receptions, 1,183 receiving yards, eight TDS).
Josh Allen Tried To Mend Fences With Stefon Diggs
Through it all, Allen has tried to reassure the media and fans that he and Diggs were on solid terms and even took responsibility, saying there were things he could have done better to nurture the relationship. That was back in June 2023.
In any event, it seems that Bills fans overall would prefer to keep Allen.
Chemistry is important, and the lack of it between Diggs and Allen proved damaging to them in big games and in building a relationship that could translate into championship plays on the field.
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