The Buffalo Bills shocked a lot of people when they decided to part ways with superstar wide receiver Stefon Diggs this offseason, trading him to the Houston Texans. But it sounds like there was actually a pretty simple reason for the decision: they did not think he was worth what they were paying him anymore.
During a recent appearance on The Athletic Football Show, Buffalo Bills General Manager Brandon Beane made it clear that the salary cap played a big role in why the team decided to part ways with Stefon Diggs as they decided to part ways with him early so his expensive contract was not an “albatross hanging on your neck.”
“A player of his caliber, you weigh a lot of things in those situations,” Beane said according to Pro Football Talk. “But ultimately, we just talked about the cap. I don’t need to go through all the reasons why we decided to go ahead and do that. I would say, from a cap standpoint, we decided just to go ahead and eat it now. We think we can compete and do what we need to do by eating it now. And not next year. Because if we didn’t, if we tried to come up with some way to split it up too many different ways, then now it’s just like that albatross hanging on your neck all year. You look at your cap and you’re going, ‘Look how much money we still have dead.’”
Obviously, this paints a pretty brutal picture of what the Bills thought regarding Diggs’ value, and it explains the decision to part ways with him.