Stefon Diggs has seen his name in headlines in both Buffalo and Minnesota in recent days. What Bills fans are loving is all the images surfacing of Diggs working out with his new teammates, namely quarterback Josh Allen.
His former backers, Vikings fans, have been hearing Diggs’ name throw around a bit by Vikings bench boss Mike Zimmer. Appearing on the Rich Eisen Show last week, the coach said that Minnesota had “no intention” of trading him to the Bills earlier this offseason. Things just… happened.
But one thing did push the Vikes to make that deal, according to a new report from the weekend. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said on the day of the Diggs trade, the receiver’s tweeting actually did push the Vikings to deal him to the Bills.
Per Rap Sheet on NFL Now:
“What triggered the trade more was Diggs kind of ambiguously tweeting earlier that day about potentially going somewhere.”
“What happens, as you know Mike, is when a player kind of brings up his own future and discusses maybe being traded, teams start calling and going, ‘Oh, could we trade for this guy?’ I know that the Buffalo Bills — I believe the Eagles were also a little bit kind of in the mix there — but the Bills were very serious about it, and it was more so them giving an offer the Vikings couldn’t refuse than the Vikings wanting to deal him.”
Just hours before being sent to Buffalo, Diggs sent out messages like “it’s time for a new beginning” and “something’s going to happen” via his social media page on Twitter. It had been a well-known thing that Diggs was hoping to get out of the Minnesota for some time. Following the trade, Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane actually admitted that he had been pursuing Diggs since the trade deadline during the 2019 season, but he couldn’t get a deal done then. Instead, he waited until this past March and sent a slew of picks to the Vikings, including a first-round pick, for Diggs. The Vikings went on to use that first round to select LSU wideout Justin Jefferson at the 2020 NFL Draft.
In addition, Diggs deleted the Vikings logos from his social media prior to the trade day and he posted video of him working out in another team’s shirt. Not the Bills, rather the Cardinals. Many knew Diggs wanted out, and evidently the cherry on top was a few of his tweets from earlier that same day he was traded.
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