That Aud Smell

Stockholm Syndrome, man. I'm telling you.

Yeah - he’s most likely not getting a big deal next offseason. He’ll be in that mercenary veteran WR mode. Akin to OBJ, maybe. As @seltzermom speculated on Twitter: Cowboys or Chiefs will likely be on his 2025 wishlist. And as Ross Tucker remarked: There’s downside here for the Texans if Diggs doesn’t get the targets he needs to tee him up for his next deal.

F’sho.

Just a great post -- this middle portion is especially incisive. I'm quietly hoping for a boi-oi-oi-oing moment when Big Baller Beane goes all in, all in by moving this year's first, next year's first, a couple seconds (?!), and grabs one of the prized WRs in this year's draft.

I'm mostly just clowning around. I was giving a big chuckle to the apparently non-ironic invocation of hope as a reason to prefer the Sabres as currently constituted. "Hope" has become a bit of a four-letter word among the Sabre faithful.

Can I get a hell yeah. It's just a thought experiment, after all. This would depend, btw, on lottery rules and whether there are elite players among the top amateurs. (Not because I'd want us to have that player, but because we'd probably be able to trade back and acquire a boat load of more assets.) And, of course, you need a good team doing the work. Goobers who played in the NHL and then ran a fancy hockey rink need not apply.

Lol - do you recall the report about him giving a hype speech about how coordinated the 9/11 terrorists were? Dude's just sort of weird in general. Recall the Tyler Dunne piece on this topic: "I don’t know why he’s that awkward but his social skills are lacking,” an unnamed player told Dunne. “Maybe he’s just wound-up thinking about ball. You’ve got to talk to the team every day. That’s one where maybe he heard it on a podcast. Next episode! That’s not the one to lead with. He was trying to bring the team together. It was a horrible, horrible reference. He missed the mark.”

Hear, hear. Nothing is known, nothing is assured. The Bills will, of course, need to compete to win games. The idiocracy out there hive-minding the "WINDOW CLOSED" stuff is just the laziest, dumbest, click-baitingest hooey imaginable. Whatever. Those folks have livings to make. Clicks and eyeballs to attract. And lord don't let me be misunderstood: The Bills may have a down year as they work through this pain. Sheeyit. The Allen-led Bills may never make it to a Super Bowl. Who the eff knows? @nobody. Actually, strike that. I mean NOBODY knows. The future's not written and can't now be known. Go Bills.

This is a great post. I can't bring myself to disagree -- not strongly anyway -- with the sentiment that part of the puzzle here was Diggs' desire to leave (and how he evidences that desire). As others have stated -- including that Stadium Wall poster you quoted (and fair play to you - I can't/won't sift through the noise over there) -- the bottom line is that Diggs' ability to produce as a WR1 had declined to a point where the engagement was no longer tenable. You abide and endure the other stuff if he's still capable of being a WR1. He isn't. So he's gone. That said, if he were a good soldier, then he's possibly (probably?) still here for 2024. This is a change in thought compared to what I posted above (that, even if he were a model citizen, he'd have been dealt now). Because $31M on the books for a guy not on your team is a wallop.

Diggs steadily became irrelevant as 2023 wore on. One thing that caught my attention: Brady asked him to run bubble screens. I've never seen a WR1 less committed to a route than Diggs was to those bubbles. He fumbled on one of those plays against KC in the divisional round. So, his production declined precipitously and he wasn't a fit with what they're trying to do. That's how and why you can remove a guy like that, when they did. What on earth. Shut the f**k up, lady. that's not how dead money works in the NFL.

Absolutely. Widely reported that Diggs will be the team's largest cap hit for the upcoming season - over $30MM.

Ooof. That was a killer. From our seats, we had a sweet view of that play too -- watching it from the 300s a bit behind the LOS, Allen just arcing it up there, ball flying into the night sky, falling just beyond the defender, everyone groaning when the ball hit the turf, seeing the replay and confirming that it went right through the chute. Just ouch.

Let's Go, Brandon.

I'm bracing myself for the Bills' plan to be to take a guy like Thomas from LSU - who reportedly is a bit raw and needs some work - and go into the season with a WR corps of Samuel, Shakir, Hollins, the rookie WR, and a WR5 who's a ST guy (Shorter/Isabella). That might be a bit of butthole clenching time. There'd be Kincaid and Cook as well, though.

as some flinty ol' guy in Maine once said: "You can't get thahh from heeyah." I'd love to see the Bills in play for one of the top 3 prospects. But I don't see a path into the top-10 for them. In the Allen draft, the Bills made 2 moves to get to where they needed to be (7th). they traded cordy glenn+ to get into the top 15 and then traded again to get to 7.

Graham's piece and the other chatter doesn't really change my view of the matter: If Diggs were still productive at a level that could justify his contract, he'd still be here. The team would endure his eccentricities and, moreover, pay his salary provided he's producing like a WR1. Once he started to fall off and was deemed to be in decline, the team no longer felt compelled to endure his quirks and pay his significant salary. Put another way: If Diggs were a proverbial boy scout - a boring ass dude who aped all of McDermott's platitudes - I think the same deal gets made.

it appears that the personnel people concluded that he'd declined. it appears that the finance people concluded he wasn't worth the guaranteed salary coming to him. the toxic/drama speculation is for the click baiters.

The NWS guys and gals are straight up nerds. No commerce is involved in their nerding.

I like the sound of that.

I'll tell you what was not good business: The extension the Bills gave to Diggs. Disaster, that.

*Sigh* I am genuinely sad. But I trust that this is good business. Not without risk, of course. But good business. I've said it before: If every player on the Bills roster hated to lose as much as Diggs does, then this particular edition of the Bills would have been in (won?) a Super Bowl by now.

They effing BETTER be. Beane never ventures without a plan. He must have one in place. He must believe that they can now move up enough to get a WR that they feel really good about. This 2nd rounder will be part of the compensation.