The Buffalo Bills traded a slew of picks in a trade with the Minnesota Vikings to land wide receiver Stefon Diggs. That haul did include Buffalo’s first-round pick at the 2019 NFL Draft.
While the Bills did lose that top pick, the team did acquire a player that Pro Football Focus recently named as one of the football analytics outlet’s best all-time late-round steals at the draft.
Here’s why PFF thinks the Bills now have a guy that was considered a steal:
Reason He Fell: The production concerns were difficult to ignore. Diggs had only 792 yards his final season at Maryland, and his career-high 842 yards came as a freshman in 2012. It’s also worth noting that he had a broken leg and lacerated kidney during his college career.
PFF’s Take at the Time: We only had one season of grading on Diggs — he earned a 79.3 receiving grade, which didn’t really put him highly on our radar that first year. As such, he didn’t make the first or second round of our mock.
What We Learned: Evaluate receiver production within the context of QB situation and route tree. We saw this with our evaluation of Jalen Reagor this season. Evaluate whether someone can get open, not whether it leads to big receiving numbers.
In what PFF learned from Diggs is exactly why he eventually went down as a guy traded for a first-round pick. Diggs can get open, and he can get open and he’s open even when he’s not. Entering his third season, Bills quarterback Josh Allen hasn’t had that type of weapon at his disposal.
Previously Diggs had Kirk Cousins throwing him passes. Cousins could be a comparable quarterback to Allen, although the Bills’ signal caller is much more of a dual-threat player. While it did cost the Bills a first rounder to land Diggs and not a fifth rounder like it cost the Vikings in 2015, the Bills won’t mind one bit if the team gets first-round production that Diggs gave the Vikings, such as his back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons.
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