Beck Water

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.

I really like Nico Collins from what I've seen. It could go the other way - Diggs could "return to the feast" with a true #1 WR ahead of him taking off the heat

Well....they do say "Chargers gonna Charger". I don't see it happening, but I didn't see Beane trading Diggs for the equivalent of a 3rd round pick, either.

I don't think the Texans took on $19M of which $18.5 is fully guaranteed because "every other GM" thought he was a cancer On the other hand, a guy who is turning 31 and is due $19M ($18.5M guaranteed) this season and $18M and $19M the next two seasons, has limited trade value.

Thank you! I really appreciate you putting this up there.