Billy Buffalo
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- Mar 16, 2019
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On Monday, the Texans struck a deal to trade one of the best receivers in football for a running back the Cardinals didn’t want, a second-round pick, and a flip-flop of fourth-rounders. Also on Monday, the Vikings got a lot more for Stefon Diggs.
Minnesota reportedly gets a first-round pick (No. 22 overall), a fifth-round pick, a sixth-round pick and a 2021 fourth-round pick from the Bills, for Diggs and a 2020 seventh-round pick. That gives the Vikings a pair for first-rounders plus more for Diggs, who simply became a luxury the Vikings couldn’t afford, given the team’s new-look, run-centric offense.
Even though Diggs finished the year with a career-high 1,130 receiving yards, he went AWOL for a couple of days after a Week Four loss to the Bears, and he’s had other periodic streaks of moodiness over the years, which the Vikings did a good job of handling — but with which the Vikings surely grew exasperated.
And is it a coincidence that Diggs went no-minced-words public with his desire to leave Minnesota on the same day the Vikings gave Kirk Cousins a fresh three-year, $96 million deal? Diggs has never seemed fully on board with the quarterback who arrived only weeks after Case Keenum and Diggs connected for the Minneapolis Miracle, and now Diggs will be catching passes from a strong-armed youngster in Josh Allen, who’s never had a receiver with Diggs’ skills.
So it’s a win-win, with Buffalo getting the receiver they wanted to get last year, when they tried to trade for Antonio Brown, and the Vikings getting the ability to draft four younger, cheaper players who, if properly selected and developed, will become part of the team’s nucleus in the coming years.