Texans’ Trade for Stefon Diggs Follows Similar Path as Bills

Houston has a quarterback on a rookie contract just like Buffalo did with Josh Allen, and hopes this aggressive move ends differently than it did for the team it's emulating.

Just hours after Diggs ventured onto social media questioning a fan’s thoughts on whether the receiver was essential to Josh Allen’s success, he was traded. / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

With the trading of Buffalo Bills receiver Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans, we have one team, Houston, going through the typical machinations of a franchise attempting to capitalize on a quarterback playing on a rookie contract. Then we have another team, Buffalo, still trying to manage that next phase, when the franchise quarterback is making the GDP of a small nation and defines the gravity the rest of the team must operate within. 

It may or may not be a coincidence that the move happened just hours after Diggs ventured onto social media questioning a fan’s thoughts on whether the receiver was essential to Josh Allen’s success. It may or may not be worth the Texans pausing to wonder whether they will find themselves in a similar situation during a critical stage of C.J. Stroud’s development. Of course, it’s difficult to put a governor on ambition when managing a roster of seemingly ascending talent and an advantageous financial situation. 

The Bills had already guaranteed Diggs’s $18.5 million salary for 2024 and spent years in the business of tamping down any possible brewing disillusionment taking place between the receiver, the team and Allen. Did the enticement of a second-round pick (and the return of fifth- and sixth-round selections to Houston) really convince them that all these efforts were no longer worthwhile? And what should we conclude from that? Buffalo proved, as much as any team can really prove, that it’s possible to go on a run without the No. 1 receiver pacing the offense, even though that run demanded an incredibly risky strategy of rushing Allen about as many times per game as a third-down back. The Bills would rather continue on this path, it seems, than make it work with Diggs. They may end up believing it is easier to draft and develop a receiver to get to where they ultimately want to go. 

So, if you are the Texans, there should be a pause in undergoing the exact same series of moves that Buffalo undertook when Allen was a rookie quarterback. No doubt, surrounding a developing player with talent is critical. No doubt, Houston has some great pass-catching options, but watched as Tank Dell suffered a broken fibula last year and how the weight on Stroud’s shoulders increased. No doubt, Diggs is an elite route runner who, when schemed for, can still alter the balance of a defense. 

But as the Bills are coming to find, and the Chiefs are begrudgingly discovering, there is another component to this. It’s a part of the process that involves a semblance of control from the quarterback in developing talent that can exist on the same page as the team’s most important person, and be where that important person wants you to be, and catch the balls the important person wants you to catch, without any external complications. Tom Brady had different eras of receivers such as this and won Super Bowls. Peyton Manning, too, although his receivers ended up being generational superstars as well. Drew Brees won a Lombardi Trophy. And on, and on. Similarly, other developing quarterbacks—Mark Sanchez comes to mind—have struggled with trying to suit someone else’s comforts above his own when the receiver room is more established than the quarterback. This is a complicated dynamic and it's fair to wonder how exhaustive the research process has been in terms of how Diggs’s arrival will affect a healthy dynamic, or if Diggs was simply the strategic scapegoat for Buffalo’s inability to realize its full potential (in which case, the Texans may be getting an extremely motivated and cooperative player).  

The question remains: Would the Texans have been better off using that second-round pick and investing it, either in a package of picks allowing them to move up in the draft, or in a pure second-round talent, who Stroud can grow alongside, and not feel some kind of pressure to appease?    

We’re making some big assumptions, of course, based on scattered previous reports and the timeline of this trade in particular. Sometimes a trade is just a trade. Every team has its own internal calculus and Diggs, just like every other player, had a price tag that, if met, was more sensible to unload. 

Of course, sometimes a trade is an obvious red flag; a team that has whiffed advancing to the Super Bowl in recent years and is so painfully close to taking the next step who unloads not one, but two of its best wide receivers in favor of recent mid-round picks or veterans, such as Curtis Samuel, whose best attribute at this point may be familiarity and dependability. In the process, they are prepared to incur a massive dead cap hit ($31 million) more reminiscent of some recent quarterback trades and releases. 

The Texans have weighed it all, apparently. They have chosen not to explore what teams do less frequently when they are in possession of a rising star quarterback: continue to exhibit the patience, pragmatism and process that led them to the selection and development of said player in the first place. The Texans are, to use the incredibly trodden phrase, all in, and they hope this version of that aggressive stance ends differently than the team they are emulating, and taking players.