Beck Water

Actually, you got it exactly. I've explained before, I'll recap: An NFL contract consists of two parts - -bonuses (signing etc), which are paid to the player up front but broken into chunks corresponding to the years of the contract for cap purposes. -yearly cash, which is the salary plus any workout and per-game roster bonuses. Salary is pai d per-game. A "capology" tool, is that salary can be renegotiated into a vet minimum salary, plus a renegotiation bonus that is then split into chunks. So when the player is traded, the new team becomes responsible for the yearly cash due the player for the remaining contract But the trading team has already paid out the bonus money, so that doesn't go with the trade. The trading team doesn't have any years of remaining contract after the trade, so the chunks all get summed and fall into the trade year's cap. The point Cosell made was that from his POV as a tape watcher who is not employed by the Bills, Diggs is not at this point a #1 WR who is worth that kind trade value. See transcript up-thread. See post by Virgil for pick values. Edit: here Rd #1 pick 17 is valued at 950; 28 is valued at 660. Difference of 290 pts, which is a low 2nd round pick of this year. The Bills got a 2nd round pick in 2025, which is usually equated to a 3rd round pick this year - so around 180 points - AND tossed in this year and next year 5th (6th this year), both valued at about 10 points. So maybe we got about 160 points in trade value for Diggs? We would have had to give them something more, if the value charts are correct and that's how they valued Diggs. To get that 1st pick swap, we might have had to toss in both our 4th round picks or something

I put a bunch of time into transcribing the Cosell interview on OBL. Fundamentally, Cosell's take seems to be that he was not (what Cosell calls) a #1 WR in terms of Cold Hard Football Facts driven by watching tape at this time, and was not going to be able to live up to his contract with the Bills. And Cosell's take is, that's what other teams see when they value him in a trade -a 30+, declining possession receiver. There may have been stuff that happened within the building that was a factor, but I think it would be a naive take to view his social media posts as pivotal or even significant contributions to the decision to trade him. Stuff like being a Captain but huffing out of the building after a playoff loss and refusing to talk to the media, may have contributed. Stuff we don't know about, may very well have contributed. Now if I were Diggs, I'd be sleeping with a transcript of what Cosell said under my pillow and reading it before every workout and every game, letting it fire me up and seeing what I could do to make him munch his words.

Factually, Diggs was #7 in receptions and #6 in targets this past season. #10 in TD and 1D. But in terms of Y/G, falls to #17 and Y/R falls to #67.

I didn't see this linked anywhere. Greg Cosell on One Bills Live discussing the Diggs trade. For those hiding under a rock and unfamiliar with Cosell, he has a long time history with NFL Films and is very well regarded as a film analyst. He is not a clickbait seeker or a server of "hot takes"; others may differ but everything he says is based on what he sees on film, and what he says is usually worth listening to. Nor is he a paid employee of the Bills like Brown and Tasker and Capaccio, what he says is what he sees - it may be tactful, he isn't coming on a Bills show and saying rude things, but he lets his opinion fly. Brown: (discuss Bills cap situation, taking on extra cap) What does it say to you? Cosell: Well, Number 1, it tells you they were anxious to make the trade and get rid of Stefon Diggs. I'm not in the building, I can't speak to the why. Number 2, it tells you that there was not a big market FOR him, because this trade didn't just come about in 5 minutes. I'm sure there have been numerous conversations over probably a meaningful amount of time and there was not a big market. Now, I hope fans are interested in tape reality vs. emotion, because the tape reality tells you that Stefon Diggs is not a #1 WR in the league. He might have been on the Bills, but he's not a #1 receiver in the way we think about #1 receivers, the guys who really are. So you're talking about a 30 year old declining player, who is not a #1. That's essentially what the tape tells you that Stefon Diggs is. Now I'm sure there's a lot of raw emotion right now for Buffalo fans 'cuz it just happened, but that's the reality of the tape. Brown: Let's dig into that a little bit more, Greg. What do you see on tape, that shows you a, quote 'declining player' at least from being an alpha male #1 on the roster? Cosell: I don't think he's a fully dimensional receiver at this point in his career. He's not a true vertical dimension, now, that doesn't mean you can never catch a vertical ball, I want people to understand that. There's a lot of guys in the league that you wouldn't call vertical receivers, who do catch "go" balls or posts. But he's not a fully dimensional receiver, for want of a better term, he's much more of a possession-type receiver at this point in his career. Now he's still very very good at that, that's his game, and I think that's ultimately what he is. You have to remember, he's not going to a team where he's going to be the #1 receiver. He helps that team a lot, because they have Nico Collins who is a true boundary X #1 receiver, and on the Bills, Stefon Diggs, just by dint of elimination, was their #1. But I think they're looking to get a true #1, now we'll see what happens in the draft. And we'll see if they have something in mind with a trade...or whatever they feel, we won't know the answer certainly in the next 24 or 48 hours. But I think they just felt, he's 30 years old, he's declining, it's time to move on. Let's move on from Diggs. Tasker: One of the things we discussed as well, with a guy like Diggs, he's certainly not going to fall off a cliff. His production** and his targets were there, even when he wasn't being as productive in the second half of last year as he was in the first half, But, this deal, like you said, there's a couple things about it. One, it smacks of letting Diggs move on a year earlier rather than a year late. And the financial stuff notwithstanding, the money's already been paid to Diggs that's on the cap, it's not like they're going to throw any more money to him. And it would be hard for him to live up to the contract that he had already signed. Cosell: He's probably, at this point in his career - I think he's going to be 31 during the season - I don't think he's going to get another big money deal at this point in his career. Look, we know that Houston is a team that is going to have a good passing game, he's probably not going to get the same volume of targets that he got with the Bills, although that declined clearly as the season progressed [Beck sez: from 11 per game to 8 per game], so he's not going to put up the same kinds of numbers, and I don't think that the league would see him, clearly they don't, you saw what the trade was, the league clearly doesn't see him that way - he's not going to get another big-number deal. Brown: So Greg, Let's look at the draft.....(5:25 if anyone wants to transcribe the rest..... ------------ **it's not clear to me what Tasker means by "his production and his targets were there, even when he wasn't being as productive...." if anyone can translate, please do. This is not a novel opinion about Diggs Cosell has expressed. Last year (I think) and earlier this season, he expressed the view that the Bills didn't have any elite talent at wide receiver, they had a single good WR. The surprise to me was how straight out Cosell gave his interpretation of the trade, that the compensation represented a determination "let's get rid of Stefon Diggs." So the elephant in the room here, that Cosell in his typical pattern will put out there but not explicitly say, is: since Stefon isn't a true #1 in his view but was the BILLS #1 by process of elimination (and since he was the Bills "single good WR" in earlier interviews), where exactly does that leave the Bills for receiving talent?

Just a little nit, Beane will not be taking on dead cap over 2 seasons for Diggs in this trade. We take it on the chin this year then next season we're clear. I'm trying to parse this statement and it does not compute "defenses kept on bracketing STef which kept him close to the LOS" Can someone translate please? I thought the routes a WR is assigned on a given play define his depth from the LOS I'll answer your question about the starting outside WRs after training camp.

It was a 2025 2nd round. The usual practice is a future year's pick is considered to be a round lower, to compensate

Interesting you mention that era. I don't disagree about Gilmore, but for a guy they got nothing for, how about Bobby Trees? We got nothing for him either, and he had almost 200 more receiving yards than Watkins and close to the same YPG (47 vs 53 or something like that). He Got Paid by the Rams (5 years $34M) but when I saw his contract, I thought we could have structured something to keep him instead of overpaying Deonte Thompson and Jordan "Nothing to do but each other" Matthews and Andre Holmes, not to mention a 3rd for Fat Kelvin. And he went on to contribute more than Watkins did his 1st year in LA, then to notch a couple 1000+ yard seasons and a 3rd that came close, for the Rams after Watkins squibbed out for them. Appeared in 2 Superbowls and won 1 as well, though his best days were past by the win. And yeah, 2017 and 2018 Bills were a tough watch, offensively.

Well, it's better than a kick in the teeth, but it reads to me as though it were carefully crafted by his own and/or the Bills PR team.

The "tinge of sadness" part is true. I thought Morse seemed like 100% stand up guy, classy, took responsibility, but also came across as speaking his mind ("we've been yelling at that ***** to slide!"). Tre' White was a treasure. Diggs did come across as petulant on the sidelines and certainly unwilling to fulfill his league-mandated press responsibilities, so I don't feel that "damn, we let a Good Man walk out of the room!" Oh, you're Evil. Evil, I tell you, Evil.

To that last, I would certainly like you to be proven correct.

Yes, this is where I am

Speaking of boots, that is probably the game that earned a boot in the butt for Vic Fangio and a shot at DC for Anthony Weaver. More to it of course, but he stubbornly kept Kader Kohou on Diggs when it was clear he might have achieved better coverage on Diggs with a Dolphins Cheerleader.

I can't say that's true for me (the "eager to put my boot on it" part). I was surprised, taken aback, and I feel that the Bills are a worse team today than they were yesterday. It may be necessary surgery, I'm not in a position to judge.

Dude. In the pre season evaluation, 2020, Beasley and Brown were not "barely hanging on in the league". Brown was 29 and coming off his first 1000+ yard season without a true #1 like Fitzgerald in front of him. He had 53 1D and 6 TD to boot. Beasley was coming off his 2nd highest yardage total as a slot. Diggs, Brown and Beasley was a legit talented trio You know how it showed? It showed because the Bills were 6 yds off from the #2 passing offense in the league - they WERE the #2 offense in points scored. Josh Allen was not throwing those balls to himself. Beasley was 1 broken leg from breaking 1000 yds. Brown was injured and Davis stepped up, between them they put up 1067 yds. I really like Nico Collins in his 3rd season, and Tank Dell looked very promising indeed in his rookie year. But Dell suffered a broken fibula in Week 13 and it's not clear when he'll be back to the same form. So add in Diggs and assume he hasn't "fallen off a cliff" as he approaches age 31, we're talking 3 guys coming off 3189 yds the previous season, where in 2020 pre-season, we had 3 guys coming off 2968 yds in Diggs, Beasley and Brown. In 2021, we had 4 guys (add Gabe Davis) coming off 3559 yds. Do the Texans have talent at WR? Yes. Did they get better by adding Diggs? Most probably. Do they have more talent at WR than the Bills at the moment? Also most probably. But there's so much revisionist history here. We aren't talking Chase, Higgins and Boyd here. Do the Texans have more talent than Allen has ever had? Like in 2020? C'mon now. Maybe 2024 Diggs will have a resurgence and equal or surpass his 2020 production, but I wouldn't bet the rent money.

I Said What I Said.

So another country heard from (This is former Bills and 49ers WR Stevie Johnson) Total change of subject, but after I found this it led me to the Twitter of former cup o coffee Bill Mike Jasper. It was good to see - apparently he's the head football coach and associate athletic director now at Bethel University and doing well!

You are so full of baloney

Nate Geary's take. Agree/disagree?

I just posted Dawkins tweet

Interesting choice for 1 of 4 photos

I could be wrong, but while Diggs CAN run those underneath routes - I don't think he likes them. They often come with getting hit quickly and hard, or going down quickly to avoid hits (but fail to convert 1D)

I thought the Kyle Brandt take was interesting for a similar reason. He said it's hard to imagine that Diggs relationship with Josh Allen or his relationship with the Bills "or both" had nothing to do with this, because both were "mercurial at best". Kyle has been a Josh Allen fan-boy for a couple of years, and we can probably assume he has a bit of "tea" in the pot "off the record" there. I agree with Nate that Josh's input was probably sought (not his vote as Geary implies, but his input), and that if Josh had said "He's My Guy" and went to the mat, it probably doesn't go down, at least not for a bag of peanuts and a case of that underwear Stef and his brother shill for.

Well, that's one of the unknowable questions, right? Diggs receiving performance with the Bills, while still strong, had fallen off overall last season. He had a fall-off in 2021, then came back in 2022, then off again. So is this something he'll rebound from, or the start of a downward trend? It fell off to where it was his last year in Minn, where he was still at a performance point the Bills were willing to trade a 1st and a 4th for him. So is getting a 2025 2nd reasonable comp, for the same level of performance the Bills were willing to fork over a 1st for but 30 instead of 26? I'm still trying to get comfortable with LibreOffice, so I messed around with a couple of charts. These are Diggs receiving yards per game for 2022 and 2023, including playoffs. Obviously there's a lot of game to game variation and the regression line means nothing at all statistically, but it seems like the highs weren't as high and the fall off in the 2nd half was steeper. One of the things that does happen to all NFL players as they get older, is that the toll on the body gets harder and harder to recover from between games and builds up faster and faster during the season.

It's a 2025 2nd

Jauronimo is correct and Joe Marino's stats for Diggs at least, are incorrect. The bottom line as Kyle Brandt pointed out, is that the Bills saw a lot of receiving talent walk. There are positions where I don't doubt Beane to identify talent and McDermott and staff to coach it up - like DB and S. There are also positions where historically, his track record is more mixed - like WR.