Well, it happened. The day that all Minnesota Vikings fans warned their Bills Mafia counterparts of has occurred. After four seasons, numerous cryptic tweets, sideline blowups, and one AFC Championship appearance, the Buffalo Bills have traded Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans.
Given the timing of the situation, I was admittedly a little bit shocked. Despite the more cryptic Twitter posts in the past few weeks, I assumed that the Bills would try their best to hang on to the former University of Maryland receiver, partly because of the ungodly amount of dead money they would have to eat if they traded him.
But they ultimately decided that he wasn’t worth the headache anymore, despite his talent and all he brought to the offense. It makes sense, too, given that Diggs is on the wrong side of 30 and has gone since the middle of October without a 100-yard receiving game.
Despite all of this, the result of this entire saga was always obvious. He has a lot of talent, but Diggs has always been the “diva” wide receiver. We saw it with his antics in Minnesota with the cryptic tweets, deleting all his pictures in a Vikings uniform, and skipping practices with an “illness” and not reporting it to the team.
While it can be somewhat easy to blame him, it is important to remember that the “diva” receiver concept is nothing new. On an episode of The Love Boat podcast, Arif Hasan talked about a conversation he had with someone who used to conduct third-party personality testing for NFL teams, where this person spoke about how receiver is the only position where lower social maturity usually correlates to more success.
It is easy to point and laugh at Bills fans who didn’t see all this coming or willingly deluded themselves into thinking nothing was wrong. It was a position we all found ourselves in, and we, like them, had to learn the hard way. After all their talk of “Diggs likes it here,” “He and Josh Allen are best friends,” and “he would never do that to us,” Diggs did do it to them. Now they know exactly who he is.
This whole Diggs situation again feels a bit reminiscent of certain lines from Olivia Rodrigo’s songs. Now, I bet you’re asking two things right now. Preet, didn’t you write an Olivia Rodrigo piece about Kirk Cousins recently? Don’t you get tired of referencing a budding early-20s pop star in articles about football players?
No, I don’t. Shut up, I’m writing here, not you.
Secondly, Preet, there is no way you could connect this to teenage/early 20s pop music.
Well, sit down and read.
I know. I could hit the obvious notes like I did with Cousins referencing the song Deja Vu and how there is the irony of Diggs having a meltdown on the sideline in the playoffs. I could also mention his cryptic tweets in general, like in Minnesota. Or I could again mention the song Happier and how Diggs “found someone great but didn’t find someone better” or found someone who “brings out the better” in him.
Instead, I am gonna focus on a verse from her song “Traitor” and how it relates a bit to the Diggs predicament.
In Traitor, Rodrigo sings:
You betrayed me
And I know that you’ll never feel sorry
For the way I hurt, yeah
You’d talk to her
When we were together
Now, most people will wonder, how does this relate to Diggs? Well, Diggs couldn’t wait to leave Minnesota and Buffalo, Diggs. After the Vikings traded, it became public knowledge that he had demanded a trade in the middle of the season. Much like during his time in Minnesota, it appears Diggs was already looking out for his next location when he was with the Bills.
New Houston Texans running back Joe Mixon, of all people, confirmed that Diggs was actively looking for a new location.
While Diggs hasn’t done anything explicitly wrong, there is something weird about looking for a new spot while currently under contract. Perhaps that might be why none of his teammates wanted him to date their sisters.
In the end, Vikings fans can take solace in knowing they won the deal by getting the picks that became Jefferson and Cameron Bynum. Ultimately, it all went down exactly how we all thought it would.
