I had to bet on myself: Untold stories from Stefon Diggs trade demand and the Bills purs

June 16, 2024

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Micah Hyde doesn’t remember how he found out, whether it was a text, tweet or news alert.

But the Buffalo Bills safety does remember his reaction upon learning they landed Stefon Diggs from the Minnesota Vikings in March 2020.

“Hell, yeah!” Hyde recalled Wednesday. He pantomimed a double take at his phone and pausing amid deeper thought.

“F—, yeah! That’s exactly what we need!”

Hyde knew more than most what the Bills were getting. While with the Green Bay Packers, he had to worry about Diggs four times over two seasons, and it was evident the star receiver was going to give NFL defensive backs migraines for years to come.

Yet as great as Diggs had been for Minnesota, his departure seemed inevitable. A month into 2019, the receiver responsible for the most spectacular touchdown in Vikings history skipped team meetings and a practice over displeasure with their run-heavy offense. He was painted as petulant and selfish. The Vikings fined him $200,000.

Diggs wanted out. Buffalo eventually extracted him.

The trade proved transformational, providing Josh Allen the absent ingredient to unleash Buffalo’s offense, while blending a profound leader into an already-undeniable culture.

Minnesota prospered by using its acquired draft capital to select receiver Justin Jefferson, a young superstar voted to the Pro Bowl each of his two NFL seasons. They found a younger, cheaper version of Diggs.

“You want a win-win trade,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “I’m not hoping that whatever we send is useless or that the Vikings would screw up the picks they got.”

For the first time since the blockbuster, Diggs will face his former team Sunday in Highmark Stadium.

To mark the occasion, both general managers and Diggs’ representative told The Athletic what happened behind the scenes to close the deal. Former Vikings GM Rick Spielman and agent Adisa Bakari never have divulged the details. They confirmed Diggs’ long-rumored trade demand four games into the 2019 season and shared what happened throughout the fated divorce.

Involved sources contacted for this story also revealed the New York Jets, New England Patriots and Houston Texans were involved in conversations, but none could box out the Bills.

Buffalo traded first-, fifth- and sixth-round draft choices in 2020 plus a fourth-round pick in 2021. Minnesota sent a seventh-round pick along with Diggs.

Buffalo ended up with an All-Pro receiver plus cornerback Dane Jackson, who has started 13 games since the start of last season. Minnesota’s haul, after exercising or trading its draft choices for additional picks, is seen below.

The 2020 Stefon Diggs trade

Head-to-head, Diggs and Jefferson essentially have been statistical equals while playing 41 games apiece.

Diggs since the trade is averaging 7.1 catches for 88.2 yards and 0.6 touchdowns a game. Jefferson is averaging 6.2 catches for 94.7 yards and 0.5 touchdowns. Jefferson also has a rushing touchdown.

In the postseason, Diggs’ production has dipped to 5.2 receptions for 75.6 yards and 0.4 TDs, while Jefferson has yet to reach the playoffs at all.

Jefferson outperforms Diggs when age and experience are factored. Jefferson has 55 more receptions, 1,411 more yards and five more TDs while playing just one more game than Diggs did through three NFL seasons. Diggs, of course, left Minnesota because he wasn’t getting the kind of action Jefferson does. Jefferson last year led the NFL at 14.3 yards per touch and comes to Orchard Park tops again at 14.4 yards a touch.

The balanced swap went deeper than Diggs and Jefferson.

Jackson would have started 15 straight games, counting playoffs, had an ambulance not whisked him from Highmark Stadium in Week 2. He has filled in admirably since Pro Bowl cornerback Tre’Davious White suffered a season-ending knee injury last Thanksgiving.

“We saw enough physical ability and a smart, tough, hard-working player,” Beane said of scouting Jackson out of Pitt. “He was going to turn over every stone to make it.

“He’s been outstanding.”

Bynum started three games last year as a rookie before permanently taking over, holding off 2022 first-round draft pick Lewis Cine in training camp to backstop the Vikings defense alongside six-time Pro Bowl safety Harrison Smith.

“People might think those late picks are throwaways, but they’re not,” Beane said. “They’re calculated risks is what they are.

“You take shots on guys you think have the best chance to make your club, and if they don’t and you can get them on your practice squad it’s still a positive.”

Even Davidson, released at the end of Vikings training camp, helped the Bills win a game this year. In Week 8, Green Bay Packers inside linebacker Quay Walker was ejected when he shoved the plainclothes tight end during a sideline skirmish. The penalty pushed the Bills to the Packers’ 28-yard line and helped build a 21-7 lead.

The Diggs trade tree has deeper roots if we include how Buffalo obtained the fifth-round draft pick they packaged to Minnesota.

In August 2019, it came from the Cleveland Browns along with a sixth-round pick the Bills eventually used on kicker Tyler Bass; the Browns received future Pro Bowl guard Wyatt Teller and a seventh-round pick.

“I don’t think about it that way, but I know some people do,” Beane said. “I would have found a way to get Stef without that fifth-round pick.”

That seems like an understatement.

As all parties indicated for this story, Beane wasn’t going to let much get in Buffalo’s way.

WHY IT HAPPENED

Diggs: I feel like I took my lumps in Minnesota. Even though I was a good player in Minnesota, what I wanted for myself was beyond measure, and I had to somewhat bet on myself.

Bakari: (Former Vikings coach) Mike Zimmer was not running an offense that was balanced or situated toward the pass, and it was clear that was the future of the organization. They were going to be a 60-40, run-centric offense, which would mean their receivers would walk out of the game with sparse numbers and contributions.

Darrell Hazell, former Vikings receivers coach: When you’re not in the game plan, you haven’t touched the ball after 15 scripted plays and things are not going well for the team offensively, a competitor wants to be involved in the game plan. I can make a difference!

Bakari: Stefon was adamant. They’re not getting the most from me, and I’m not helping the team as much as I know I can help. I want to go to a place that is going to utilize me. Rick was more than accommodating and accepting to that reality.

Spielman: We wanted to keep him. But you continue to assess and evaluate as you go through processes like this.

Beane: It sounded like it was just a relationship that had run its course. He’d had some frustration that I was aware of. There probably were things he could have handled better and things the Vikings could have handled better. Sometimes, those things happen, where a relationship is not the same as it once was.

Stefon Diggs (pictured) played for the Vikings from 2015-2019, saying “Even though I was a good player in Minnesota, what I wanted for myself was beyond measure, and I had to somewhat bet on myself.” (Rich Barnes / USA Today)

Bakari: (Pittsburgh Steelers coach) Mike Tomlin, quite frankly, says it best: You want volunteers and not hostages. When you have a player who’s not happy with his situation, why do you insist he stay?

Hazell: He wanted to help his team win, and sometimes he might say something. I never took it the wrong way. Some people might have, and I’ll leave it at that.

Kirk Cousins, Vikings quarterback: He made it pretty clear from the start. This has nothing to do with you. We talked about it, and in pro sports, there’s a level of players needing to protect themselves and look out for themselves and their careers. I understand that, and everybody in this locker room does. So, I understood where he was coming from.

Bakari: This wasn’t a locker-room malcontent or a player who was disruptive in the community. This was a guy who was everything you wanted in a player, which is why the Vikings extended him (for five years in 2018).

Hazell: Sometimes, things get misconstrued and exacerbated more and more. Things are repeated that aren’t necessarily true, but it swells up to a point that can’t ignore it anymore. He was in that vortex.

Bakari: He’s gregarious, the nicest guy you would want to meet. He makes anybody he encounters feel like the most important person in the world. When he puts that helmet on, he transforms into that competitive beast.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Bakari: When it was rumored about Stefon’s discontent in Minnesota (in October 2019), we had a meeting with Rick Spielman and asked for a trade.

Spielman: Adisa and I had a lot of phone conversations. Then he flew to Minnesota to sit down for a good, long talk.

Bakari: Rick asked Stefon to bear with him, fight through the 2019 season and, if things didn’t change, then they would revisit at the end of the season.

Spielman: I brought Stef into my office and talked him through everything as well. It was as professional as any player could be. We agreed we would finish out the season, play hard and then we would go from there.

Bakari: Stefon said, “OK,” and you didn’t hear anything else about it until that tweet the day of the trade (in March 2020).

Beane: I called Minnesota about him at the 2019 deadline, and they weren’t interested in moving him at that time.

Spielman: It was made very clear to anybody who asked that we would not trade him during the season.

Beane: The positive part of that is we did a lot of recon before I even called: Who he is, what he’s about, if he would fit what we’re doing. We did a lot of digging on him through various avenues. We talked to people who knew Stef from college, who knew him as teammates. We wanted to know if he was a kid who, if he gets eight balls and his team loses, is he happy compared to getting three balls and winning. He wants to win. He’s just ultra-competitive.

Spielman: I give credit to the professional Stefon Diggs is. After the trade deadline, he played unbelievably hard for us and helped us get to (the second round of the playoffs). We probably wouldn’t have gotten there without him.

Bakari: Rick Spielman was true to his word. In the offseason after 2019, he gave me permission to talk to other teams about a trade.

Spielman: The next time we talked about it was (February 2020) down at the Combine. I had lunch with Adisa and talked through everything. I talked with our ownership group and with Coach Zimmer to see if we were all on the same page. Adisa and Stef also understood we weren’t going to give him away for a seventh-round pick either. There was significant compensation that was going to have to be made.

Bakari: The best thing about this trade is there was open communication between original GM and agent and then prospective teams and agent. When we found what would be the right spot, we could facilitate the conversation between the two teams.

Spielman: Once we decided we were going to trade him, we worked together as a group. I told Adisa to go talk to people, and we would talk to people on our end. I told him it was not going to be within the division. That would have been a non-starter. Unless somebody wanted to give us four first-round picks, then OK. I was open, because we traded Percy Harvin to Seattle (in March 2013), to trade within the NFC, but I would be more open to the AFC.

Bakari: When you don’t involve the agent and wake up one morning to learn you’re traded, it makes for a difficult landing.

Spielman: I always took that approach (of keeping the agent involved). It’s better to work together to come up with the best resolution for the team, but also the player.

Bakari: The team that’s getting him wants to know he’s going to be on board before they even close the deal.

Beane: If I’m trading a first-round pick or anything close to that high, I better know what I’m getting. That would be negligence on my part to ship that much away for something I have serious concerns about.

Bakari: You’re talking about relocating an individual oftentimes to a city that’s complete unfamiliar. No disrespect to Buffalo, it’s a beautiful town, but if you grow up in DC like Stefon did, you’re not thinking, “Ooo, one day I want to live in Buffalo!” And at the time Stefon was coming, the Buffalo Bills weren’t what we see today. They made the playoffs, but they were still turning the corner. Stefon had been to an NFC Championship Game with the Vikings.

Spielman, who stated at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine there was “no reason” to anticipate a Diggs trade: We weren’t interested in trading Stef unless it was something that was going to be significant value. I had no intent to trade Percy Harvin either. At the time the question was asked, I didn’t have the intent. I’m not going to just give (reporters) the information. If they ask the question, then I’m going to answer truthfully, but they didn’t ask me that.

it’s time for a new beginning.

— DIGGS (@stefondiggs) March 16, 2020

Beane: I was on the phone with an agent about something else. Joe Schoen came to me and said, “There’s some tweets out there, and Diggs might be looking for a way out. Can I call Minnesota?” He came back to me a few minutes later after talking to George Paton, their assistant GM at the time. They weren’t shopping him, but it wasn’t the same response we got the previous fall. They said they weren’t planning to move him, but they’d listen.

Spielman: The Bills are the ones that initiated talks about the trade. I said that if we do trade Stef there, since they’re initiating, I would be looking for the highest compensation. My job is to look out for the franchise and get not only a fair deal, but the best deal possible. Adisa understood that too. I would try as best I could, but I wasn’t going to take less compensation to accommodate them.

Beane: So, I called George because I wanted to hear out of his mouth what he told Joe. He reiterated what Joe told me, that if the offer was strong, they would do it. I don’t know if I learned it on that call, but I came to find it was the Percy Harvin value. I remember George going through it with me. Then I looked it up.

Spielman: A trade was not inevitable, not unless there was fair compensation. I told (Bakari and Diggs) I would listen to offers, but we weren’t just giving to give away a young receiver that was becoming one of the best in the league. Everything had to come together.

Beane: After I talked to George Paton, I called Adisa because I wanted to know if Stef might not want to come to Buffalo or is going to tell me we had to tear up the deal they just did a year and a half prior or demand a new deal based on what we gave up for him.

Spielman: I can’t give Adisa high enough praise in how we worked together going through all this because it was a pretty unique circumstance, especially with a player that young and of Stefon’s caliber.

Bakari: I spoke to several (teams), but the conversation with Brandon was a no-brainer, five-minute conversation.

Beane: Adisa advised me they’d want some money pushed forward and they didn’t expect a new deal. I think they knew if Stef was going to demand a new deal, he might get stuck in Minnesota. I asked him to talk it over with (chief contract negotiator) Jim Overdorf and lay it all out.

Bakari: The conversations with other teams were not as seamless. I don’t know if I had the same, definitive conversation with other GMs. Several were kicking the tires, but Brandon knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Beane: We felt very comfortable that once we got Stef here that he would fit what we were looking for. He needed a change of scenery, and the timing was right for everybody.

Spielman: I don’t know if their initial offer grabbed our attention of what we were willing to take, but after two or three calls we came together to where both parties were happy. We knew from our end the type of compensation we would have accepted.

Beane: I called ownership and Sean (McDermott) to give him a heads up of what I was looking into. It was during COVID, so we had only five people in the building that day: Me, Joe Schoen, (player personnel director) Dan Morgan, (vice president of football administration) Kevin Meganck and Jim Overdorf. Everybody else had been sent home.

Spielman: The deal came together quickly. When we traded Percy Harvin, that took longer. But this one went quicker because Buffalo knew they wanted him. I don’t know what Buffalo did from their recon standpoint, but they had done their homework. It was just a matter of hammering through the compensation.

Beane: The first conversation happened with Minnesota mid-afternoon, ended up getting back on the phone with them around 9 o’clock that night and it was a series of two or three phone calls with George Paton, and around 9:45 or 10 o’clock we agreed on the deal.

Spielman: I have the utmost respect for what Brandon has done in Buffalo, and I think the respect was mutual that there was no lollygagging. We weren’t going to waste each other’s time.

Beane: Maybe we gave the strongest offer because of the work we’d already done in 2019.

THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Spielman: There’s always an unknown. There was uncertainty going forward. I knew we had a talented roster. We beat the Saints on the road in the playoffs and then lost to (eventual NFC champ) San Francisco.

Diggs: In this game, it can go either way. So, I probably was a little anxious when I first got here.

Beane: Stef gets a lot of credit for coming in here, opening himself up to a new culture, a new building. Ever since he’s been here it’s been team first. When you look across the league, they don’t all work out like that. Blending in with our culture has made him a better pro and us a better team.

Diggs: I feel like they made me comfortable not only having a quarterback that gives you confidence, but he’s more than just football. He’s my friend. It grew from there. That was a COVID year, so we had to spend so much time together. I wasn’t used to that, and I didn’t see a lot of my friends. They became my family.

Beane: He brought his style and blended it with ours. No one competes any harder in practice and games than Stef Diggs.

Since becoming a Bill in 2020, Stefon Diggs leads the AFC in receptions:

1. Stefon Diggs – 290
2. Tyreek Hill – 274
3. Travis Kelce – 254#RoundingUpTheHerd pic.twitter.com/dLXTAxcSFC

— Buffalo Bills PR (@BuffaloBillsPR) November 11, 2022

Hazell: I thought he was mislabeled. In my 33 years of coaching, he’s one of the best guys I’ve had to coach, and I’m not talking ability. If you ever question that guy’s work ethic, it’s complete fiction. It’s almost comical. His teammates loved him.

Beane: Even when we start practice with one-on-ones, receivers against DBs, he’s out there taking on anybody, anywhere. When (Tre’Davious White) was healthy, that was the battle you wanted to watch every day. It became a more competitive practice period than it had been in my time here.

McDermott: Both teams are rather happy and pleased with how it worked out. We’re certainly happy with how it worked out, and they got a great receiver as well.

Beane: People are always trying to say who won or lost the trade. I think there’s plenty of times you can say both sides won the trade.

Spielman: We didn’t know we were going to get Justin Jefferson. Once we did, you can say you knew he was going to be good, but you can’t know for sure how good. If someone knew that, they’d be making a gazillion dollars to draft each year.

Beane: The rarity of what happened is they actually used the pick and got Justin Jefferson to fill that role. What a hell of a talent he is. It was good for Minnesota, good for Buffalo and good for Stefon Diggs.

Bakari: They lucked up and drafted Jefferson and started to shift their philosophy, and he’s become a central cog in their offense.

Spielman: It was one of the pieces we needed to complete our roster, and we were fortunate. If you recall that clip of how relieved I was when Justin did fall to us, you can see what I thought of him.

Diggs: He’s a hell of a player, definitely one of the best receivers in this league. What he has done in such a short amount of time shows you he’s a special player.

Adam Thielen, Vikings receiver: You hate losing a guy like Diggs, especially with our relationship, the way he treated me, the player he was on the field. Then he leaves, and Justin comes in, and it was almost a very similar relationship, similar player. He’s got a ton of potential and has proved that day in and day out.

Cousins: Make no mistake about it: Stefon is an elite receiver. He’s shown that here. He’s shown that there. And he’s doing it again this year, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least, having played with him.

Beane: Where he has exceeded our expectations was how quickly he became a leader on our team. I knew he would be a leader, but he’s even more of a leader than I anticipated. Once he saw how this team was built and the respect that he had in our building, he took it upon himself to lead. He wasn’t voted captain that year, but by about November he might as well have been.

Cousins: It’s worked out for everybody involved. I think Stefon felt that he was wanting a different opportunity, and I think his production in Buffalo would suggest that’s worked out very well for him. It was tough to lose him, but when you’re able to go get Justin … that sort of made it sting a little less.

Diggs: My time in Minnesota was amazing. I loved it. I had a great time in Minnesota. I don’t have any bad taste in my mouth at all. There were some great people, great players, great coaches. It just didn’t work out. … Sometimes, curveballs are thrown at you and things get changed up. But I feel like this was part of my plan, the plan God had for me. A lot of good things have happened for me since.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Eric Espada, Erik W. Rasco and Hannah Foslien)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57knFqcGpmanxzfJFrZmppX2Z%2FcL%2FTnp2opl2Ztqiz0marq5mUmnqjtculqmaumaC2r7PSaA%3D%3D