The Buffalo Bills were up 9-7 at the half against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Having said that, the game had a pretty bleak outlook for Buffalo.
That is, until the Bills (10-3) came out and put a stamp on this one in the second half. The Steelers (11-2) had few answers for Buffalo en route to their 26-15 win.
Hindsight is 20/20, but via video conference, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, who played a big part in the improved play by the Bills after a slow start, certainly made it sound he knew his team was going to play a lot better in the second half against Pittsburgh.
“Nah, hell nah,” Diggs said when asked if he was worried at all about the offense or QB Josh Allen going into the second half. “He’s never too high and he’s never too low. I just tried to stay behind him and let him know we got his back on the outside.”
While Allen did have a much better effort in the second half, it was really Diggs that stood out the most. After only three grabs for 38 yards in the opening half, Diggs added seven receptions for 92 yards and a score later on.
What appeared to do the trick for the Bills offense were some blocking and game plan adjustments at halftime. Allen found more time to get the ball out quicker and did just that, plenty of times to Diggs.
But according to the wideout, that wasn’t the case. At least in his own opinion, Diggs said he thinks the Bills’ playmakers, himself included, just had to win matchups and be better… get open.
“We weren’t being us in the first half,” Diggs said.
This ownership that Diggs puts on himself isn’t just him talking a couple of nice words into a microphone, either. After Diggs put the team on his back, many of his teammates were talking about him after the game. However, they weren’t really mentioning his play on the field.
Instead what really stood out is the comments about his character.
Diggs made Allen is look much improved after the half… but the QB instead raved about how wrong folks were in criticizing Buffalo trading for the star wideout this past offseason.
“The juice, the energy, the excitement that he brings when he’s on the field…,” Allen said. “When we first traded for him, and the whole media backing about him was so negative about him… it blows my mind that people can get that so wrong because he’s been nothing but great for us.”
Buffalo’s anchor on the offensive line, Dion Dawkins, took it a step further. The team captain said Diggs deserves to have his own personal designation.
“Listen, Diggs is so special that as I see him play, I just want to rip off my captain ‘C’ and throw it on his chest, because he’s a stud, man,” Dawkins said. “He’s been grinding.”
Sometimes players aren’t quite aware of the numbers, but adding volumes to the comments made by Diggs’ teammates is the timing of them. Up to 100 catches on the year, over the course of the next three games, Diggs needs one single catch to break the Bills’ franchise record for most in a season (Eric Moulds). Not only that, his 1,167 receiving yards is currently a career-high… again, with three games left.
Even with those publicly-known numbers, the focus on Diggs still wasn’t his hands or toe-tapping grabs. It was his attitude and leadership for the Bills, which makes his acquisition, somehow, seem smarter than it already was.
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