Vikings

Trade Stefon Diggs? Absolutely Not.

Photo credit: Cary Edmondson, USA TODAY Sports

Football is a supremely complex game. This isn’t a secret. When you have 22 players on the field at the same time each trying to fulfill different roles, it’s easy to get confused about what is valuable and what isn’t.

However, while the complexity of the game isn’t lost, one clear theme most football fans would agree with is that a team with good players is more likely to win than a team with… not good players.

The Minnesota Vikings are a good example of this. The roster is full of good players on both sides of the ball, and they haven’t had a losing season since 2014. General manager Rick Spielman and head coach Mike Zimmer, along with many other key team executives and coaches, have built a pretty darn talented roster.

It doesn’t appear as if the Vikings will enter a rebuild mode any time soon. They just won a playoff game and, while the salary cap space doesn’t look great on the surface, the Vikings do have some wiggle room thanks to some team-friendly deals that can be shed to create space.

But many are suggesting that the Vikings trade one of their most valuable players. Stefon Diggs just put together one of his best professional seasons, while quarterback Kirk Cousins also had one of the best of his career — with Diggs being a big reason for that.

And now the Vikings should trade Diggs?

Absolutely not.

Diggs was the most valuable non-quarterback on the Vikings offense this season, and it wasn’t particularly close. He was perhaps the best big-play threat in all of football, and it was clear opposing defenses respected that. And in many cases, it didn’t matter — he beat the secondary anyway.

Thanks to a reworked offensive scheme after the departure of John DeFilippo in 2018, Diggs was used in a more vertical role in 2019. This paid off, as Cousins increased his passer rating from 106.8 in 2018 to 119.7 in 2019 on deep throws (20 or more yards downfield). Diggs, meanwhile, led the NFL with 635 receiving yards on passes 20 or more yards downfield.

The Vikings passing attack didn’t record eye-popping cumulative numbers, mostly because of a dedication to the running game. But Cousins was efficient and limited his mistakes, despite the absence of Adam Thielen for a large portion of the season.

Speaking of efficiency, Diggs was one of the most efficient wide receivers in the NFL in 2019. He finished second in yards per target, while the new Pro Football Focus Plus/Minus measurement listed Diggs as one of the most valuable receivers in the sport.

The Vikings’ roster is still full of good players, and Diggs is one of those guys.

Let’s break this down even further. Hypothetically, if the Vikings were to do the unthinkable and trade Diggs, they would get a return similar to Percy Harvin in 2013, give or take a little bit of value.

The Vikings netted a first-round pick in that deal, as well as a mid-rounder and a seventh-rounder. Which, for a team in rebuild mode, was not a bad haul.

But there’s a few problems with this hypothetical scenario. First, the Vikings are not in rebuild mode. They might be soon! Right now, however, it’s clear this team wants to win. Second, even if the Vikings were in rebuild mode, Diggs is a premium receiver in the prime of his career — an excellent building block for a team starting fresh with a new quarterback.

Lastly, trading Diggs and his $14.5 million salary would result in $9 million of dead cap. Sure, you free up $5.5 million, but is that really worth it? You get rid of a star talent, one of the most valuable receivers in the NFL, to create a mere $5.5 million in salary cap space? That’s questionable.

Plus, what’s the chance the first-round pick the Vikings get out of that deal results in a player of Diggs’ caliber? The last two receivers the Vikings drafted in the first round were Cordarrelle Patterson and Laquon Treadwell.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s receiving corps is just not equipped to lose Diggs. Thielen is a stud, without a doubt, but he’s not getting any younger. The rest of the group has virtually no NFL experience aside from Bisi Johnson, a seventh-round pick in 2019.

Ultimately, trading Diggs would leave a huge hole in the VIkings’ offense in 2020. Cousins would likely be less efficient than he was in 2019. Big plays in the passing game would almost never happen. Either a rookie wide receiver from the 2020 draft or one of the inexperienced guys on the roster now would have to step up and take on a full-time No. 2 role, which is debatable.

Then there’s the talk of Diggs’ maturity: throwing helmets, calling out his teammates and getting fined for not showing up to practice, or whatever it was that happened after Week 4 of 2019. Look, here’s the deal. The Vikings need Diggs more than Diggs needs the Vikings, even with his large contract. His sideline “tantrums” and “immaturity” aren’t as detrimental as some think. He’s an emotional and competitive player, who just so happens to be right about the fact that getting him more targets would be beneficial for the team.

Plus, if you hadn’t noticed, the Vikings responded well this season when Diggs voiced his concerns.

Bottom line is that trading Diggs is essentially punting on the 2020 season, which would likely result in the end of the Kirk Cousins era, the Mike Zimmer era and the Rick Spielman era.

This move could be the first domino to fall in a complete overhaul of the Vikings, a rebuild that would take a few years and probably wouldn’t be successful, given the franchise’s history in rebuild mode (not great). Football is a complex game, for sure. But this is pretty black and white. Diggs is a premium receiver in the prime of his career that has objectively had a positive impact on Cousins and the entire offense. That’s a guy you keep on your roster. It’s appalling that this idea has been circulated in the first place — and let’s hope the Vikings front office isn’t listening to any of this nonsense.

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