Have we calmed down from the Diggs trade now?

It is hard to control emotions. Right after learning Diggs trade, my head, my logic said it is the right move, though I really wished we got a sizable return, but my emotion was full of sadness. Deep down I have this fear that now we are screwed this year. We created a big hole for ourselves.

NO #1 receiver. NO #2 receiver. We are indeed taking a step back in 2024.

From 2020 season onwards, every season we are one of the favorites for Superbowl. It is very difficult, psychologically, to come down from that height, even though we fell short in each of those 4 seasons. Hope is eternal. And in recent years the hope is real. To many, without Diggs, we are going back to the eternal hope in 2024.

I’ll say this: almost all of us here, if we were in Beane’s chair (instead of reading on web, pounding keyboards), we would probably reach the same conclusion. This Diggs thing as said in the SI article (https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/04/08/ta...iggs-nfl-draft), has been going on for awhile. And the 2^nd round pick is the best we are going to get for him.

The argument is whether Diggs is the difference between the Bills winning or not winning the Superbowl in 2024. I don’t know. But I do know if the Bills are to win Super Bowl 2024, the main reason will not be Diggs – very little chance. It will be because they find a difference maker or two in the draft and Miller back to his re-injury form (and of course Allen plays to his standard).

Looks like the brain trust at OBD (Terry, Brandon, Sean) determined that we are going to take all the medicine this year, not dragging it out like one dose at a time. They are going to look into the draft – the Chiefs way – to find recipe for cure and back up to compete. The Chiefs found the right recipe 2 years ago …

Someone used baseball analogy on this board that resonated with me. Just like the Chiefs, we have that ace pitcher who can shut down the other team. Mahomes does not throw no hitters all the time, but he is always able to get the key guy out at the right time. Allen can strike almost anyone and everyone. But he may let a single or double pass him at the wrong time. But the main difference is that the Chiefs have some home run hitters that can complicate Mahomes from time to time – Kelce, Jones, and Hill in the past. The Bills had a lot of single and double hitters, including Diggs. You need to chain some hits together to score a run. We thought we paid the money and got an aging pinch home run hitter on board (Von Miller), but he blew out his ACL in the 5^th inning and has not been the same the rest of the year.

So out goes those old legs who might still hit some singles. We are looking into some minor leagues that we drafted who may become a home run hitter (Kincaid). And we are certainly going to look for more home run hitters in the draft. Still some balance is needed. Not sure I’d trade everything up for a “can’t miss home run hitter” – really is there ever a can’t-miss-guy in sports? We still need quality guys who can get on base for the home run hitters.

I was good from jump street. :dance2:

No I in team.

One leader at a time.

Never got upset. Beane explained himself. All makes sense. The Bills aren't going to fall off a cliff because they don't have Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis. WRs just about as easy to replace as RBs these days. Yes, this year there may be a bit of a back-step, but even if so they will be in a great place next season. I'm good with the change. Shakir and Kincaid are there. Beane went out and got Samuel who's reception % in > 10% better than Davis. Like everyone else, presume the Bills will try and draft Diggs replacement. I hope it all works out.

I'm bothered more by the handling of the offensive line so far. And bugged by the fact how the team has handled the roster has led to this.

Taking the largest non-QB dead cap in the history of the league is a pretty big **** up.

Beane's going to have be a lot better than he has been moving on from here.

I wasn’t upset about Diggs or Morse or Poyer or Tre or Dorsey or…

We had all those guys and we kept flaming out in battle.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

We hit the reset button now, let’s hope to have a killer draft and get lucky this year. If not we’re going to have millions of dollars of dry powder for BIG FA next year. I’m excited.

Lastly back to the baseball analogy. I’m a big Atlanta Braves fan, they have an ace pitcher on the team named Spencer Strider. He’s out with TJ surgery now unfortunately but when he was healthy he threw absolute gassss. He led the league in strikeouts last year by a LARGE margin to the next guy on the list.

Why do I bring him up? Because along with the strikeouts he ALSO allowed an inordinate amount of home runs. Now power pitchers are more prone to the dinger than guys who don’t throw hard but he still gave up too many.

He realizes this hole in his game and is working diligently to clean it up as much as possible.

Our guy is a perfect parallel to Strider. Flame throwing QB who has supreme arrogance in his own abilities and chucks it down the middle too often only to get taken deep (picked) because of that. Let’s just hope that just like Strider he is working diligently to correct his flaws.

He’s this close >.<

Allen is good enough to win a superbowl now. Pinning the hope on Allen improving to another level, which would be darn near perfection, is not a bet I or many should put down. That is really on Allen and Allen alone. Do we know mentally he can get to that level, like a Manning or Brady? All we know is, based on what we have seen in NFL, lesser QBs has won, like Stafford. So from a management perspective, we want to find another difference maker. The Braves have Strider as an Ace. But they have Acuna Jr. who hits 41 home runs multiple times. Where is the Bills Acuna Jr.?

I do think there are lessons learned. In NFL, Acuna Jr. level guys rarely gets traded. The Chiefs franchised Sneed, but they traded him and signed soon-to-be 3 year old Chris Jones to extension. Beane's way of buying a difference maker is not going to work. With Allen's contract going forward, I see no more Diggs type of trade or Von Miller type of FA contract in the future. They need to find the difference makers from the draft and paying them. Middle of the road guys like Morse and Knox will not get the contracts like they got (Morse refuse to take a paycut and is gone; Knox took a paycut), unless they are willing to take a below market level deal like Milano. There will be no middle class - they will be replaced by rookies.

I need to get a Watkins name plate to modify my Diggs jersey.

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Originally Posted by ghz in pittsburgh

Allen is good enough to win a superbowl now. Pinning the hope on Allen improving to another level, which would be darn near perfection, is not a bet I or many should put down. That is really on Allen and Allen alone. Do we know mentally he can get to that level, like a Manning or Brady? All we know is, based on what we have seen in NFL, lesser QBs has won, like Stafford. So from a management perspective, we want to find another difference maker. The Braves have Strider as an Ace. But they have Acuna Jr. who hits 41 home runs multiple times. Where is the Bills Acuna Jr.?

I do think there are lessons learned. In NFL, Acuna Jr. level guys rarely gets traded. The Chiefs franchised Sneed, but they traded him and signed soon-to-be 3 year old Chris Jones to extension. Beane's way of buying a difference maker is not going to work. With Allen's contract going forward, I see no more Diggs type of trade or Von Miller type of FA contract in the future. They need to find the difference makers from the draft and paying them. Middle of the road guys like Morse and Knox will not get the contracts like they got (Morse refuse to take a paycut and is gone; Knox took a paycut), unless they are willing to take a below market level deal like Milano. There will be no middle class - they will be replaced by rookies.

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You a fellow Bravos fan?!

So ya you’re right the Bills don’t have a second premier player…yet… like Acuna or even Olson.

But I’d argue that the weighting is much different so the metaphor is imperfect at best since a starting pitcher only touches the ball once every five games (usually only two thirds of each game at that) whereas the QB touches the ball on pretty much every offensive snap.

Add that factor to the difficulty of scoring a second elite player and you have to optimize what you have. We have the Cyborg and he can become near perfect with just a small tweak in decision making. Nothing else. That’s not too much to ask for a guy making $50m a year imo.

I’m only upset we didn’t win one when he was here. Other than that, we weren’t going to win a SB with him this year and we sure as **** aren’t going to win one without him.

Credit to Beane for getting a 2nd rounder for him before production drops off and the situation becomes more toxic, rendering him worthless in a future trade. The extension was a mistake but credit to those who don’t reinforce failure. Only one more head to lop off and this ship will be officially course-corrected.

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Originally Posted by YardRat

I'm bothered more by the handling of the offensive line so far. And bugged by the fact how the team has handled the roster has led to this.

Taking the largest non-QB dead cap in the history of the league is a pretty big **** up.

Beane's going to have be a lot better than he has been moving on from here.

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Handling of the offensive line?

Morse was Avg, at best. He was the weakest link in that O-line on many occasions.

The draft is still to happen.

Don't worry about it yet.

We had multiple chances to win with Diggs, Davis, Morse, White, Poyer and Hyde and failed to do so. It’s reasonable to assume we were going to fail to win a SB again even with them.

But, that’s a ton of talent and experience to lose, and with the cap situation, we failed to replace any of it. When Beane signed Miller, he knew he was pushing really tough decisions to this off-season. The hope was we’d win a title before then and no one would care. We didn’t, though, and now we are wasting at least one year of Josh’s prime on a rebuild, more if the FO doesn’t nail this draft.

There’s a good chance we will win the Div cuz the competition is **** but this team is not a SB favorite anymore.

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Originally Posted by Mad Max

You a fellow Bravos fan?!

So ya you’re right the Bills don’t have a second premier player…yet… like Acuna or even Olson.

But I’d argue that the weighting is much different so the metaphor is imperfect at best since a starting pitcher only touches the ball once every five games (usually only two thirds of each game at that) whereas the QB touches the ball on pretty much every offensive snap.

Add that factor to the difficulty of scoring a second elite player and you have to optimize what you have. We have the Cyborg and he can become near perfect with just a small tweak in decision making. Nothing else. That’s not too much to ask for a guy making $50m a year imo.

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Not a Braves fan. But I have relatives in Toronto who are relatives to Alex Anthopoulos, which makes me a relative to the Braves GM. I met him a couple of times in person. So I'm a fan of him. The Blue Jays are stupid to let me go because all the current stars are drafted/acquired by him.

Anyway back to the Bills. You gotta remember we are talking about top 5 teams in the league so they all have a strong roster, a top QB. I want Allen to improve, to be the best, but how much better can Allen become compared to the like of Mahomes and Burrows? They may all be within 1% among each other in terms of skillset/ability/performance, varying year to year. But how much better is Chris Jones than any of our D players? Players use money to measure themselves, sort of, adjusting for year over year increase. Allen and Mahomes are in the same ball park, 43 to 45 million a year average. Chris Jones is averaging nearly 32 million a year. Ed Oliver is averaging 17 million a year. The Bills never get to pay a guy of Jones caliber because they never have one. That my friend is the real difference, in my opinion.

Someone else mentioned we are now missing Hyde, Poyer, White, Morse, Davis, Diggs. Those guys single, double hitters - maybe Diggs were hitting triples consistently in his first 2 years here. The Chiefs have a bunch of them too on the roster. But they also have home run hitters like Jones and Kelce we never have in the Allen era. In playoff games, those home run hitters make a difference.

theres a reason it takes 11 players at a time in order to play, Eli Manning won 2 SBs, ask yourself was he better than Allen? Did Baltimore have future hall of fame players on the offense's?

theres a lot that has to fall into place in order for a team to win it all, as long as we have Allen we have that opportunity,,,, the rest has to fallin line, I believe we should have won the year we lost the 13 sec game, we will get there in Allens tenure.

Calmed down, I’m glad he’s gone! I think I would have traded him after the loss to the Bengals The one thing I know I wouldn’t have done was messed with his contract after that display!!!

I did tell my son in February that I thought he would be traded on or before the draft.

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Originally Posted by OpIv37

There’s a good chance we will win the Div cuz the competition is **** but this team is not a SB favorite anymore.

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Actually, the Bills are still a Super Bowl favorite. Not THE favorite. But in the top 4-5.

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nf...-bowl-lix-odds

The roster ain't done yet. Let's reserve judgment for when training camp starts.

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Originally Posted by cas22

I believe we should have won the year we lost the 13 sec game, we will get there in Allens tenure.

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I don't feel that way, even though I get that sentiment from a lot of Bills fans. The Bengals were on a mission that year. They handled the #1 seed Titans, then the #2 seed Chiefs. That defense was playing at its absolute peak.

For the Bills, Allen was playing the best football of his career at the right time. But the D was on fumes after losing White. It is hard for me to imagine the Bill to stop either the Chiefs and Bengals offense - turns out they couldn't stop the Chiefs. And the Bengals were just potent on offense but has the defense to go along. I don't believe, even today, that we would get past the Bengals, even at home.

Now If the Bills were in Superbowl, I do believe they have a very good shot at beating the Rams.

Looking back, Beane was a step behind - if he had outbid the Rams to get Von Miller at the trade deadline, we might indeed win it all that year. We lost Tre on Thanksgiving Day and the corners were Levi ad Dane. Against the Pats, no problem. Against the likes of Tyreek Hill and Chase etc. with Mahomes/Burrow throwing the ball, without pass rushing help, no chance. People look at Allen and offense and think we can do anything. Remember in that epic game at Arrowhead, Allen had to overcome multiple 4th and longs to get to 13 seconds. That's a lot of luck being used right there. I doubt they could repeat that performance and have the same luck twice in a row.

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Originally Posted by ghz in pittsburgh

Not a Braves fan. But I have relatives in Toronto who are relatives to Alex Anthopoulos, which makes me a relative to the Braves GM. I met him a couple of times in person. So I'm a fan of him. The Blue Jays are stupid to let me go because all the current stars are drafted/acquired by him.

Anyway back to the Bills. You gotta remember we are talking about top 5 teams in the league so they all have a strong roster, a top QB. I want Allen to improve, to be the best, but how much better can Allen become compared to the like of Mahomes and Burrows? They may all be within 1% among each other in terms of skillset/ability/performance, varying year to year. But how much better is Chris Jones than any of our D players? Players use money to measure themselves, sort of, adjusting for year over year increase. Allen and Mahomes are in the same ball park, 43 to 45 million a year average. Chris Jones is averaging nearly 32 million a year. Ed Oliver is averaging 17 million a year. The Bills never get to pay a guy of Jones caliber because they never have one. That my friend is the real difference, in my opinion.

Someone else mentioned we are now missing Hyde, Poyer, White, Morse, Davis, Diggs. Those guys single, double hitters - maybe Diggs were hitting triples consistently in his first 2 years here. The Chiefs have a bunch of them too on the roster. But they also have home run hitters like Jones and Kelce we never have in the Allen era. In playoff games, those home run hitters make a difference.

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AA is one of the best GMs in MLB and definitely the best Braves GM in my lifetime we’re glad to have him!

Ya Allen can’t do it alone, but he’s not alone. They are slowly building some plus talent around him.

I’m saying I don’t think it’s an absolute must to have another superstar on the roster to get Vince. Other teams have done it without even a single Josh level player. Of course the second or third superstar would make our job easier but “you run with what you brung” until we can get that player(s).

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Originally Posted by ghz in pittsburgh

It is hard to control emotions. Right after learning Diggs trade, my head, my logic said it is the right move, though I really wished we got a sizable return, but my emotion was full of sadness. Deep down I have this fear that now we are screwed this year. We created a big hole for ourselves.

NO #1 receiver. NO #2 receiver. We are indeed taking a step back in 2024.

From 2020 season onwards, every season we are one of the favorites for Superbowl. It is very difficult, psychologically, to come down from that height, even though we fell short in each of those 4 seasons. Hope is eternal. And in recent years the hope is real. To many, without Diggs, we are going back to the eternal hope in 2024.

I’ll say this: almost all of us here, if we were in Beane’s chair (instead of reading on web, pounding keyboards), we would probably reach the same conclusion. This Diggs thing as said in the SI article (https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/04/08/ta...iggs-nfl-draft), has been going on for awhile. And the 2^nd round pick is the best we are going to get for him.

The argument is whether Diggs is the difference between the Bills winning or not winning the Superbowl in 2024. I don’t know. But I do know if the Bills are to win Super Bowl 2024, the main reason will not be Diggs – very little chance. It will be because they find a difference maker or two in the draft and Miller back to his re-injury form (and of course Allen plays to his standard).

Looks like the brain trust at OBD (Terry, Brandon, Sean) determined that we are going to take all the medicine this year, not dragging it out like one dose at a time. They are going to look into the draft – the Chiefs way – to find recipe for cure and back up to compete. The Chiefs found the right recipe 2 years ago …

Someone used baseball analogy on this board that resonated with me. Just like the Chiefs, we have that ace pitcher who can shut down the other team. Mahomes does not throw no hitters all the time, but he is always able to get the key guy out at the right time. Allen can strike almost anyone and everyone. But he may let a single or double pass him at the wrong time. But the main difference is that the Chiefs have some home run hitters that can complicate Mahomes from time to time – Kelce, Jones, and Hill in the past. The Bills had a lot of single and double hitters, including Diggs. You need to chain some hits together to score a run. We thought we paid the money and got an aging pinch home run hitter on board (Von Miller), but he blew out his ACL in the 5^th inning and has not been the same the rest of the year.

So out goes those old legs who might still hit some singles. We are looking into some minor leagues that we drafted who may become a home run hitter (Kincaid). And we are certainly going to look for more home run hitters in the draft. Still some balance is needed. Not sure I’d trade everything up for a “can’t miss home run hitter” – really is there ever a can’t-miss-guy in sports? We still need quality guys who can get on base for the home run hitters.

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Except we DID get a relatively "sizable return" on Diggs.

Plus I do not think the Bills are "taking a step back in 2024".

In fact, I believe they are taking several steps FORWARD and have positioned themselves very well for contending for the SB THIS year and going forward.

The issues with Diggs are becoming quite clear as extreme friction between him and Josh Allen. It came to ahead in that moment after the Cincy playoff loss (we've all seen the picture) and Digg's selfish, childish, whiny reaction after that game which obviously spilled into he off season and his diva baloney before the season started....and went downhill from there.

Diggs was MORE THAN USELESS in EVERY SINGLE BILLS PLAYOFF LOSS in the four years he was with the team. Your #1 WR should HELP the team in the most critical games. Diggs was an ALBATROSS.

The Bills were a better team with him not being (what he wants to be) the center of attraction. All the evidence is there after the Bills fell to 5-5, three spots out of the playoffs, Joe Brady takes over and almost ignores Diggs in the offense.

He (with McD's approval) went ALL IN of letting Josh be Josh.

The result?

Over the remaining seven regular-season games, Stefon Diggs caught only 34 passes for 315 yards and one touchdown, while Allen accounted for 1,896 yards of total offense, ran for 10 touchdowns and threw for eight more. Two sophomores, tailback James Cook and receiver Khalil Shakir, and rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid emerged as trustworthy weapons.

The Bills went 6-1, their lone loss at the Philadelphia Eagles in overtime.

As I detailed....

He (Diggs) "dominated" STINKING in the last game of last year.

The first two plays of the 2023 playoff loss to KC was Diggs fumbling the ball with Kincaid saving it by pushing it out of bounds before a KC player could pick it up...fantastic 10 yard penalty.

The next play, 2nd and 17 yards Diggs dropped the ball at the first down maker after getting hit.

He literally had ONE good catch all game. 2nd and 11 at Bills 34 first play after the 2 min warning for the 1st half. He grabbed a bullet from Allen over the middle for 15 yards. He was invisible the rest of that TD drive and the game.

He had ONE more catch for 3 yards (5 yards was added by KC penalty) on the Bills first drive of the second half.

In the last drive of the day for the Bills, Diggs had THREE incomplete passes. Highlighted by the drop of the perfect DIME by Josh that went 65 yards in the air.

Biggest game of the year and Diggs was an albatross not a help.

WITHOUT Diggs, selfish diva, who is a hindrance in the most critical gems of the year, this is JOSH ALLEN'S TEAM. He does not have to worry about appeasing the big mouth, hoping to keep him happy.


This team already has a very strong core of young, outstanding players on offense that will only get better. Shakir, Kincaid and Cook.

Curtis Samuel beings a dynamic versatility to the team that they have not had since Josh became QB.

This draft is RICH with WR's, and the Bills can easily get one that will contribute from day one.

I'm opposite of your doom and gloom.

I'm excited as can be to see how the offense can blossom with Joe Brady having a full off season to further develop an offensive scheme that was excellent and very tough o stop.

I am jumping into this as I see a bunch of reports about Diggs ‘liking’ social media throwing shade at Bills fans. Frankly, it was clear that Diggs/Bills was on its last legs. They did him a favor by trading him when they did while eating the cap hit.

but in all of this I have to ask: How old is Stefan Diggs? Because his social media presence would say he has the maturity of a twelve year old. Of course, that is what social media does—infantilizes by bringing out your worst. Has he not learned any self control?

Who cares. We got a second.