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Alaina Getzenberg, ESPN
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The dust has started to settle in the wake of the second significant Buffalo Bills trade involving Stefon Diggs. The message to the public from One Bills Drive after trading Diggs to the Houston Texans was an acknowledgment that the 2024 Bills are a work in progress. While talent has departed, this team is still being constructed to compete.
“You’re trying to win, and sometimes people may not see that,” general manager Brandon Beane said last week. “[Trading Diggs] is by no means the Bills giving up or trying to take a step back or anything like that. Everything we do, we’re trying to win, and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Last week’s move put an exclamation mark on an offseason spent moving on from established veteran starters and clearing cap room for future seasons. The draft — and the Bills’ 10 picks — is still to come, in addition to late free agent signings being a strong possibility. Trading away big-name players can be seen as a sign of rebuilding, and in some ways, that is what the Bills are doing by reconstructing the roster — just not in the traditional sense of a teardown or starting over.
This team will have a new look, and will be younger, but the aim has not drastically changed, in large part, because there’s a quarterback named Josh Allen on the roster. Trading Diggs leaves the Bills with unknowns, some of which will come down to the start of the season in September.
The numbers from Diggs’ four-year tenure with the Bills speak for themselves. The three-year captain and four-time Pro Bowler (all with Buffalo) had 445 receptions and 5,372 receiving yards during his time in Buffalo. Per Elias Sports, that is the second-most receiving yards and third-most receptions by a player over a four-year span who began the following season with a different team. No player had more receptions during those four years.
Diggs will be remembered as one of the Bills’ best trade acquisitions and crucial to the team’s recent run of success. The records are lengthy. There’s also no doubt the role Diggs played in helping Allen progress in his career. Prior to the Bills trading for Diggs in 2020, Allen had a total QBR of 49.5, completed 56% of his passes and threw 30 touchdowns to 21 interceptions. Since then, Allen’s total QBR is 71.4, he’s completed 66% of his passes and has thrown 137 touchdowns to 57 interceptions.
While Diggs’ targets went down over the course of the 2023 season, but were still high. Diggs, 30, averaged 11 targets per game in his best performances of the year in Weeks 1-6, and that number dropped to an average of 8.6 for the rest of the season.
Only one wide receiver that caught passes last year is still on the roster — Khalil Shakir. Additions have come in the form of Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins, but more than one contributor needs to be added to this roster. That very well could come in multiple forms from the Bills’ draft picks, and moving around to get more out of the 10 picks is a strongly possibility, especially based on Beane’s history.
That should pair with an increased role for last year’s first-round pick, Dalton Kincaid, in the two-tight end sets with Dawson Knox under offensive coordinator Joe Brady in his first year in the role full time. Last season, the Bills were 24th in snaps with two-tight end formations (244) but ranked sixth in completion percentage (72.2%) and ninth in completions on those plays (91). Allen did have the fifth-worst QBR last season (65) when targeting tight ends, but it jumped to seventh-best (77) when targeting running backs and wide receivers.
Then there’s the elements off the field. Six of the Bills’ eight captains from last season are not signed to the roster, with Allen and Von Miller the only players remaining.
“It is going to look different, the Cs on the chest next year, and it’s a good opportunity, though,” Beane said. ” It’s an opportunity for some others to step up, and I think coach [Sean McDermott] and the locker room will be watching starting with the offseason program, who’s leading, who’s going to take over in some of these position rooms?”
The cryptic social media posts and viral moments exist, such as when Diggs quickly left the locker room after a playoff loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2023, before being brought back in by running back Duke Johnson. It is worth noting an underrated element of Diggs’ role on the Bills was what he did from a leadership perspective, including going out onto the field multiple times during games to encourage the defense and special teams, and in the wide receiver room. He was insistent in getting to safety Damar Hamlin at the hospital after his cardiac arrest, something that was meaningful to Hamlin.
“I don’t tell him enough, but I look up to Stef,” Shakir said during the season. “The way he handles his business, the way he is with us in the receiver room. We’re watching film and he’s pointing stuff out, making sure that everybody hears it, not just keeping it to himself, spreading his knowledge amongst everyone else.”
There’s a list of reasons for the trade that included creating a better cap situation in 2025 and the years to come by taking on the dead cap from Diggs this year. Another element for the Bills here — as seen in being able to walk away from the trade with a 2025 second-round pick — was the timing and value of the deal ahead of what is considered a deep wide receiver class.
Who is stepping up on and off the field will be answered in the weeks and months to come, and presents a significant test for Beane and McDermott, who joined the organization in 2017 and created a contender around Allen.
“Are we better today? Probably not,” Beane said. “It’s a work in progress, and we’re going to continue to work on that. I would just hope that people know I’m competitive as hell, and I ain’t giving in. And we’re gonna work through this and we’re going to continue to look. And I’m confident in … the guys we have on the roster and I’m confident in the staff we have upstairs that helps me and that will continue to find pieces to add and that will be ready to roll when it comes time in September.”