There’s been a bit of a divide on opinion with the Bills’ acquisition of Stefon Diggs. The wide receiver cost the Bills a slew of picks, and even their upcoming first-round pick.
Did Buffalo pay too much?
Pro Football Focus doesn’t seem to think so. The football analytics outlet pegged the trade as “fully worth it” for the Bills when recently naming the move the team’s best move of the offseason:
Buffalo traded 2020 first-, fifth- and sixth-round picks as well as a 2021 fourth-round pick for Stefon Diggs and a 2020 seventh-round pick — and it was fully worth it. With the addition of Diggs, the Bills now own three of the 35 most valuable wide receivers from the 2019 season and are the only team in the NFL to be able to say that. One of the more underrated aspects of Diggs’ play is how great of a receiver he is against tight coverage — an area Buffalo’s receivers badly struggled in this past year, as their wideouts were 28th in receiving grade on contested targets. Since 2017, Diggs is among the 10 best receivers in grade on contested targets. This move puts the Bills another step closer to a Super Bowl-caliber roster.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find larger praise than PFF’s on the trade. When was the last time “Super Bowl-caliber roster” and “Bills” were in the same sentence?
That’s what the Bills might have. Diggs is not the physical beast type of receiver some pegged for the Bills. Standing at six-feet tall, the Bills didn’t get the big-bodied target. They still could, but as mentioned, Diggs does what the big boys do: make contested catches.
Diggs joins John Brown and Cole Beasley in Buffalo’s wideout room. So now this deal’s success comes down to one man: quarterback Josh Allen. There’s no reason Allen shouldn’t take a step forward in his third season under center for the team with the acquisition of Diggs. There’s plenty of reason to believe he could do just that, too.
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