The Bills managed to reach an abrupt and seemingly tenuous truce with receiver Stefon Diggs, one day after he walked out of the facility during mandatory minicamp. But questions remain regarding the cause(s) of past issues and the outlook moving forward.
On Saturday, we mentioned that Diggs, who has a habit of posting very cryptic tweets, had yet to chime in regarding the contract extensions given to coach Sean McDermott and G.M. Brandon Beane. Later in the day, Diggs tweeted this: “If you don’t feed your dogs they a put you on the menu…"
Meanwhile, former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III (who per NFLPA records continues to be represented by the same agent as Diggs) recently offered a theory to Rich Eisen regarding the source of Diggs’s discontent.
Via CincyJungle.com, Griffin believes it’s a “personal thing” between Diggs and Allen. Griffin believes it all comes from the 27-10 playoff loss to the Bengals.
“So I’ve talked with people close the situation and, and really what it boils down to is in that last game against the Bengals, Diggs was the most targeted receiver in that game,” Griffin said. “I think he had get 10 targets in that game. But when they were down 17, they had a 10-play drive that ended in a turnover on downs. And Diggs only got one ball thrown his way. So you would think that a player of his caliber with the relationship that he has with Josh Allen, in those moments, he would look to him more often, more often. And that didn’t happen. I think that was something that why we saw Diggs hold his hands up looking at Josh on the sideline when they had the little tiff that was shown on TV.”
That’s an overly simple explanation. And while sometimes the simplest explanation is the most accurate, Diggs himself said in a Super Bowl week appearance on Dan Patrick’s show that the frustration had been building for weeks prior to the playoff loss.
It could be the offense. It could be Allen’s possible unwillingness to freelance and to get the ball to Diggs, whatever the play or the progression might require. It could be various things.
But it’s clearly something. While plenty of Bills fans are happy to embrace the “nothing to see here” vibe that the Bills tried to exude only one day after everything exploded, the effort to win games in 2023 includes an urgency to keep Diggs happy.
He clearly wasn’t. Even if he currently is, that will change unless he believes that things have improved.
It will become one of the major storylines of the coming season, and it will require every network televising a Bills game to keep a camera on Diggs, at all times.
