Season-ending playoff defeats are at all times crushing, however Buffalo Bills Pro Bowl vast receiver Stefon Diggs is taking his staff’s 27-10 residence loss towards the third-seeded Cincinnati Bengals particularly onerous. According to The Athletic, Diggs sprinted out of the locker room with all of his issues earlier than a few of Buffalo’s teaching workers even made it all the way down to the tunnel that results in the locker room. Veteran operating again Duke Johnson, who’s on the Bills’ apply squad, escorted his teammate again to the locker room earlier than he as soon as once more darted out and left Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, for good on Sunday.
The 29-year-old, who has served as a Bills staff captain for each of the 2021 and 2022 seasons after being acquired in a commerce from the Minnesota Vikings in 2020, additionally lit into Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen late within the recreation on the sideline. Diggs caught 4 passes for 35 yards on a game-high 10 targets, however solely two of them occurred within the fourth quarter with the Bills entered trailing 24-10. After the loss, Allen mentioned he would want to overview the tape to see “no matter it was that we could not get [Diggs] the ball tonight we’re gonna should be taught from.”
Head coach Sean McDermott mentioned that Diggs was within the locker room when he addressed the staff, which he mentioned was “what issues most.” He additionally addressed Diggs’ perceived outburst:
“He’s a aggressive man,” McDermott mentioned, by way of NewYorkUpstate.com. “That’s what makes him good is what you noticed. He’s very aggressive like all of us are. We work extraordinarily onerous at these jobs to be the perfect we are able to probably be, and it hurts. I would not desire a man that does not harm, proper? So if you put all of it on the road on the market, we put all of it on the road, and tonight it wasn’t adequate. That’s the half that stings.”
Diggs has performed like arguably the perfect vast receiver in staff historical past since coming over from Minnesota. He co-leads your complete league in catches (338) with Las Vegas Raiders vast receiver Davante Adams, ranks second in targets (484), fourth in receiving yards (4,189) and sixth in receiving touchdowns (29) since turning into a Bill in 2020. Each of Diggs’ first three seasons in Buffalo rank as the highest three seasons in staff historical past by way of catches in a yr. His 2020 season (1,535 receiving yards) and 2022 season (1,429 receiving yards) are the two-highest single-season receiving yard totals in Bills historical past. Diggs’ 11 receiving touchdowns this season tied the staff’s single-season receiving touchdowns report with Bill Brooks’ 11 from the 1995 season.
Diggs signed a four-year, $96 million extension with the staff on April 6, tying him to Western New York’s staff by means of his age-34 season in 2027. The deal obtained accomplished at the moment with 2023 set to be his final yr underneath contract. How the Bills resolve to handle this outburst might doubtlessly reshape their complete offense, as a sequence of cryptic tweets from Diggs precluded the Vikings deciding to commerce him regardless of his manufacturing only a few years again.
