Stefon Diggs on Bills re-signings: ‘Hopefully we’re just scratching the surface’
Like you, Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs was on the edge of his seat waiting to see if his team would retain their top free agents this offseason.
In the end, the big three of that bunch, linebacker Matt Milano along with offensive linemen Jon Feliciano and Daryl Williams, we’re all re-signed. At one point in time, such a thing seemed very unlikely.
It sounds like even Diggs possibly thought so as well when recently speaking to The Athletic. Reflecting on keeping many pieces in house, Diggs said he thinks the re-signings were a sign of both some luck and of good things to come for the team.
“We were fortunate enough to sign a lot of the guys that could have ended up on other teams or ended up on a new adventure,” Diggs said. “Hopefully we’re just scratching the surface of where we can be, but I don’t like to count my eggs before they hatch.”
What made waiting for everyone in western New York much more stressful was the COVID-19 pandemic. No one saw it coming, and while the NFL did roll on, the league still struggled financially because of fans not attending games. The side effect of that was the salary cap, which dropped all the way down from $198.2 million to 182.5M.
Each year the cap traditionally does the opposite and goes up. Even if it had just simply remained the same, Buffalo general manage Brandon Beane would have had the team in a prime position to keep free agents much easier.
Beane referenced that this offseason when discussing Milano’s deal, specifically.
“All along, we had hoped to get Matt back. I think if we hadn’t had the pandemic and lowering of the cap and uncertainty of where everything would be, I think we would have gotten Matt extended last year,” Beane said.
Both the Buffalo faithful and Diggs are grateful for Beane’s efforts to not waver in wake of the tough times involving COVID and the cap. The GM got the job done, and because of that, Buffalo is primed to make another playoff push in 2021.
