Bills WR Stefon Diggs Reassured By Being Captain After 'Offseason Chatter'
It was a noisy offseason for Stefon Diggs.
Rumors ranged from him being upset with the Buffalo Bills to Sean McDermott and Josh Allen making comments earlier this offseason that added fuel to that fire.
Now, those rumors can seemingly all but be laid to bed. Diggs was named a captain for the Bills for a second straight season. With all the talk surrounding Diggs and his standing with the team this offseason, being named captain for the upcoming season "meant a lot."
"It's been one of those offseasons," Diggs said. "There's been a lot of chatter. It was an ongoing thing, but you block out the noise. You focus on football, you focus on your team, and you focus on the guys around you."
If rumors of Diggs being upset with the team rang true, it'd be hard to envision his coaches and teammates voting him captain. With Diggs entering his fourth season in Buffalo, the bonds he's built with his teammates make how he's viewed by them that much more important to him.
"I know those guys in there personally," Diggs said. "You know their family, you know their kids and you spend so much time with them. My appreciation really goes for those [players]. They're like your loved ones. How they look at you, and how they respect you, and how they appreciate you goes a long way."
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There's no disputing Diggs' importance to Buffalo. Through three seasons with the Bills, he has 338 catches for 4,189 yards and 29 touchdowns. He also was a First-Team All-Pro in 2020.
If Buffalo is going to finally get over the hump, they'll need Diggs to be at his best. Any chance that he's still upset would be costly. And if there was a way to put a tumultuous and noisy offseason behind Diggs and remind him what he means to the team, being named captain may have been what he needed.
"It means more now than it did when it was my first time ever being named the captain," Diggs said. "The consistency of it [and] the respect from your peers. The biggest thing for me is always earning respect from my teammates, earning the respect from my coaches, and when you get named the captain, it's like reassurance."
Diggs and the Bills will kickoff their season on Monday, Sept. 11 at MetLife Stadium against the New York Jets.
