The Stefon Diggs situation is one where the details matter and they don’t. The wide receiver reportedly arrived in Orchard Park on Tuesday and then left before the start of Bills practice. Coach Sean McDermott told reporters that he was “very concerned.”
Throughout the day, other players being interviewed voiced their support for Diggs. Josh Allen said he had Diggs’s back and that, “What we’re doing here doesn’t work without him.” Von Miller said he was “on Stef’s side.” Diggs then did what we all would do in the same situation, posting pseudo-cryptic Instagram messages like Breaking Bad episode titles, bringing the rest of us into the fun.
Unless Diggs was upset about some impossibility, like taking down the Anchor Bar (and finally sending everyone to the correct Buffalo wing spot, Bar-Bill) or turning the old stadium into a Scrooge McDuck money swimming pool, it feels like Diggs is worth pacifying. If it’s about money (even though NFL Network reported it is unrelated to his contract), give it to him. If it’s some question of travel or convenience, if it’s some common player ask about a team paintball excursion, if it’s some disappointment with his place in the offense (as it was when he left the Vikings) or how widely his input is accepted, fix it. I don’t mean to make whatever the disconnect is between Diggs and the Bills seem trivial, but I do know that coaches have, in the past, labored intensely over the negotiations for hotel bedtimes on the road. Little issues can become big issues in a team setting as large and as complicated as an NFL facility. Big issues can become huge issues. And, without the recognition of a person’s contributions to your current state of being, pacifying that person can seem trivial when it is absolutely essential.
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This was always going to be the hardest part of the Bills’ uprising: dealing with the cracks in the facade and the moments when it seems to be coming back to Earth. For the better part of five years now, the franchise has been a model of stability, love and the right kind of chances to take. In the wake of Damar Hamlin’s terrifying on-field cardiac event, we were able to see what had been cultivated underneath the surface: a legitimate bond between players, a legitimate bond with a city, a legitimate culture—not just one espoused by some Malcolm Gladwell–reading head coach—that can help people overcome the parts in life that don’t go according to plan.
McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane have received their credit. Allen’s ascendance has also, rightfully, been billed as the gasoline that finally powered the franchise out of an irrelevance that was numbing at best, comical at worst.
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But Diggs’s arrival in 2020, his energy, his value on the field the past three years, the way he carried a scheme during Allen’s early years despite the fact that every defender on the field had a good idea where the ball was going, is a part of that, too. There is no Bills revival without Diggs, which is why any sticking point between him and the team right now has to be considered carefully.
Because of the way Diggs left Minnesota, he’s been painted as a bit of a malcontent, which is why many are on edge about the way he’s interacting with his current team now. But even then, Diggs wanted truthful communication. He wanted what players of his stature have earned: an assurance that they are actually as important to the day-to-day building of this thing as they are told.
There are players in the NFL who mistakenly believe they hold the same kind of gravitational pull over the organization as Diggs does. Some spike in their heels, believing that their current place of employment will crumble without their services, only to find a willing and able participant right behind them on the depth chart who costs half as much.
Buffalo, I hope everyone realizes, is different. This is partly true because Diggs is different. Failing to recognize that is failing to recognize what made it great in the first place.
