Stefon Diggs ended 2019 as the Vikings’ leading receiver and in the offseason, the team traded him.
Minnesota traded Diggs and a seventh-rounder in exchange for a first-round pick, fifth-round pick, sixth-round pick and a 2021 fourth-round pick. Despite Diggs’ cryptic tweets this offseason, Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer said on the Rich Eisen Show that the team was not set on trading Diggs.
“Diggs did not have to go. We didn’t really have any intention of trading him. Quite honestly, he put out a couple tweets, and there’s some things going on there,” Zimmer told Eisen (H/T Bleacher Report). “What happened was Buffalo came in and gave us all those picks, and we were up against it with the salary cap, so we just felt like we could save some money, get a bunch of picks and maybe get a young receiver like [Justin Jefferson].”
Not only that, but Vikings general manager Rick Spielman said something similar to Zimmer earlier this offseason.
Spielman told the Pioneer Press and other outlets that the team had no intention of trading Diggs at first, “but then there was an opportunity, business opportunity that came up, that as this evolved we felt was both good for Stefon and was good for us.”