Buffalo Bills GM explains reasoning for trading WR Stefon Diggs

The prospect was unthinkable.

Few Buffalo faithful truly thought the Buffalo Bills would part ways with Stefon Diggs during the 2024 NFL offseason. It was just media nonsense, wasn’t it? Sure, the perennial Pro Bowler’s 2023 season didn’t end the way he — or many others — would have liked, but there was simply certainly not the Bills were going to trade their fourth-best receiver of all time, especially not when he has repeatedly expressed his desire to retire with the franchise.

Furthermore, his contract was irremovable. Trading the 30-year-old would see Buffalo take on more than $30 million in dead capital. The idea of ​​a championship-aspiring team allocating more than $30 million of its salary cap to a player no longer on the roster was inconceivable.

And then it happened.

The Bills traded Diggs to the Houston Texans in early April, packing the wideout with a sixth-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft and a fifth-round selection in next year’s draft to land a second-round draft pick in 2025.

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The trade, of course, earned Buffalo an additional premium pick in a future draft. He also left his receiving corps without a bona fide primary target and his salary cap in less than ideal shape.

The Bills sunk $31 million in dead capital trading Diggs; That’s $31 million, or about 12% of the salary cap, allocated to a player who won’t take a snap for the team in the 2024 NFL season. It is, to be kind, a bold strategy for a team hoping to compete for the Super Bowl.

But it’s one that Bills general manager Brandon Beane has confidence in. Buffalo took the final three years of Diggs’ contract off its books by trading him to the Texas metropolis; Instead of paying a seemingly disgruntled player around $25 million over the next three years, Beane simply decided to take his salary cap medicine in 2024 and get rid of the deal in the coming years.

The executive spoke about his decision during a recent appearance on The athletic football show podcast, stating that it made sense from a football perspective and a financial perspective.

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“I think there are a lot of things to consider,” Beane said. “A player of his caliber, you weigh a lot on the situation. Ultimately, we just talked about the cap, you move, I don’t need to go into all the reasons why we decided to go ahead and do this. I would say from a cap standpoint, we decided to go ahead and eat it now, and we think we can compete and do what we need to do by eating it now and not going into the next year (with problems).

“If we didn’t do it, if we tried to find a way and split it up too many different ways, now it’s like this albatross hanging around your neck all year round. You look at your cap and you say, ‘Oh man, look how much money we still have left.’

Beane went on to say that decisions about when to move on from a player and how to distribute his remaining money were made on a case-by-case basis, using veteran cornerback Tre’Davious White as an example. The team released him in March with a post-June 1 designation.

“Look, we kind of factored that in knowing that with Tre’Davious White, we made a deal with him on June 1,” Beane said. “We could have eaten his whole (cap) by now. We’re just trying to pick which ones make sense to push back a bit, whether it’s signing a player with a few empty years, or using one of our balls from a June 1 release with Tre’Davious , but I’m not trying to go all the way, whether it’s Stef’s deal or some other deals.

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“We’ve tried to have a balance, and that’s looking at the spreadsheet, the balance sheet, because what does (20)25 look like? What does (20)26 do? Even how we make our voids; we’ve tried, over the last few years, strategically not to have all these things expire in one year, where it can happen – this void ends in (20)25, this one ends in (20)26, this one is in (20)27, where, again, same thing.

Although Buffalo experienced some transition this offseason, it may have set itself up for longer-term success by refocusing its core around youth while freeing up potential salary cap flexibility. Sustained success – and maximizing Josh Allen’s championship window – is, according to Beane, the ultimate motivation behind every decision he makes.

“I’m super competitive,” Beane said. “I’m going to tear up as soon as we get into a year and I feel like we have to play with one arm tied around our back because the cap is what it is. I’m on Kevin Meganck, who manages our cap and does a great job, I’m on him all the time saying, “How can we do this?” How do we proceed? Because we have Josh Allen and we want to compete every year for a championship.