Ever since the 2019 NFL Season was in full swing, Stefon Diggs kept playing mind games with the front office of the Minnesota Vikings, his teammates, and most importantly the fans. Stefon Diggs accomplished this mind game playing by posting encrypted tweets on Twitter. Always hinting at something, and keeping the public guessing, he thought he had the upper hand in the situation, which is just foolish.
After Stefon Diggs was the 146th pick by the Minnesota Vikings in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft, he signed a four year contract for 2.5 million dollars along with a guaranteed signing bonus of $227,000. In that moment, he was probably feeling proud and grateful that he had made it. Just because Stefon Diggs made the big dance, didn't mean it was a guarantee that he was going to stay there. 81.1% of the players drafted in the fifth round makes their NFL team in year one. Fast forward four years later to year five in the league and only 16.2% of the players are still in the NFL. So for Stefon Diggs, he had the talent and he became a star. In fact, on July 31st, 2018, Stefon Diggs signed a five year contract extension with the Minnesota Vikings for 72 million dollars. That is a life altering amount of money. Just a year after signing that big contract, it seemed like that grateful feeling that Stefon Diggs once maybe showed, certainly was gone.
Stefon Diggs became extremely upset when the 2019 season was a slow start for him. Adam Thielen was exploding as a superstar in his own regard, and that resulted in less targets for Diggs in the passing department early in the season. Stefon Diggs ended up being a non injured player on the injury report in the first half of the 2019 season and also missed some mandatory practices. Stefon Diggs was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and was also deactivated for one game due to his poor choice, and that is what it was. Anybody can sugarcoat anything, but Stefon Diggs was acting like a spoiled brat that was making a lot of money and someone who also was a member of a winning football team.
A few weeks ago, the Minnesota Vikings grew tired of the drama. After the fiasco of missing practices, yelling at his starting quarterback, and playing mind games on social media, the Vikings were given that final push to pull the plug on the situation and they traded Stefon Diggs to the Buffalo Bills. Now, the situation with a player not being happy on their professional sports team is nothing new and something that most, if not all, teams in pro sports has experienced at one time or another. A lot of times when these types of situations occur, the team that the player is currently on usually has to cut their loses and just move on. What makes this situation with Stefon Diggs and the Minnesota Vikings different is that the Minnesota Vikings most definitely won with this trade.
On March 20, 2020, the Minnesota Vikings traded Stefon Diggs and a 2020 seventh round draft pick for four draft picks. The Vikings received a first round, a fifth round, and sixth round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and also a fourth round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Now these players that the Vikings are receiving in the draft are not guaranteed NFL players, but to get potentially four players for a guy who was a fifth round draft pick just five years ago, is a win in my book. This trade also helped the Minnesota Vikings free up some room with their salary cap situation. The Minnesota Vikings were cash strapped by being so close to the cap, they were not able to be very active in this spring's free agency period. This trade helps that. The other thing to remember here is that Rick Spielman, the Minnesota Vikings General Manager, is pretty crafty and creative on draft day. Spielman could be collecting draft picks to maybe do some draft day trading to either move up or down in the NFL Draft to maximize the opportunities that NFL Draft can bring to a team. This trade, whether it gives the Vikings some more money or more players in the draft, should help them address the much needed attention that the offensive line needs bring to the table.
So Stefon Diggs is gone and is a Buffalo Bill. I wish no ill will on Stefon Diggs. He has the talent to be a megastar in the NFL. His stock rose greatly with walk-off Minneapolis Miracle catch against the New Orleans Saints as time expired in the 2017 NFL Playoffs. From a fan of the game, Stefon Diggs let his ego grow to an unmanageable level and needed a change of scenery. The Buffalo Bills by the way, have the craziest fans in the league in my opinion. They go out and buy out all of the six foot tables in town and go WWE in their tailgating and pregame, check it out on You Tube. Back to Diggs, it will be interesting to see how Stefon Diggs responds if the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, either doesn't get Diggs the ball or keeps missing him when he targets him. Does the change of scenery mean that Diggs is going to reevaluate himself? I hope he does. He could be a Hall of Famer some day if he can figure it out. I just wish Stefon Diggs would take a few moments and realize that he is rich and he financially probably doesn't have to worry for the rest of his life because of playing a game for a living. The dream that most have and don't actually get to experience. For him, it came true. It would be refreshing if he would just admit that he let himself get out of control, and that he now has grounded himself and has refocused on being a great player and an even better role model. Right now, with COVID-19 costing millions of people their jobs and their livelihood, he is lucky to be in the position he is in.
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