Photo: Timothy T Ludwig
Jason Smith: “Whether you realize it or not, we have seen the end of one player’s run as a superstar in the NFL, and we saw it Sunday. Stefon Diggs has been great for a long time, but what we’ve seen over the back half of this season and Sunday – that's it for Stefon Diggs being the superstar wide receiver for the better part of the last seven, eight years. They tried to force the ball to him – eight targets, he had just three catches. You see the plays where they try to force the ball to him, his separation is not there anymore, and now he’s having trouble making the contested catches. From the middle of October and on, he was ‘just a guy.’ His last 100-yard game was October 15th. It’s like he got old overnight. He’s not the 7-8-9 catches a game, no matter what -- Josh Allen could find him, guy anymore. That’s what the last few years was like with this Bills offense. He’s not that way anymore. James Cook has become a big weapon and one of the top running backs in the NFL, Khalil Shakir is making more plays and carving out a bigger role in the offense, Dalton Kincaid looks like he’s the next Travis Kelce... Stefon Diggs just isn’t the same guy. It started out weird this season when he missed some practice time and was very cagey, and he started out playing okay, but middle of the year he just hit the skids and he wasn’t the same player. He wasn’t getting the ball, and they couldn’t get it to him. It’s like he’s a DeAndre Hopkins or AJ Green – a player where you’re like ‘THIS GUY IS GREAT!’, and then overnight he’s really a number two. It’s weird to get used to because he’s still a big name but he’s not giving you the production of what he had been for most of his career. You may say ‘NAH, THE GUY IS JUST IN A LITTLE BIT OF...’ No, he’s sliding into ‘maybe the guy can go and be a three...’, but that’s where it’s going for Stefon Diggs -- on that DeAndre Hopkins, AJ Green, Julio Jones type path where very quickly they go from being a ‘one’, to now ‘uhh, if he’s on the team I guess it’s OK, but he’s not making a difference anymore’, and you saw this slide for the better part of three months. It’s a $30 million dead cap hit if they let Diggs go, so next year you’re just going to see him with Stefon Diggs’ name but his production is going to be down, and it’s going to be a new team somewhere else in 2025 when he’s 32 and just trying to stay in the league. He’s just not that guy anymore.”
Listen to Jason Smith of Fox Sports Radio’s The Jason Smith Show explain why Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs’ days of being a no. 1 wideout are long gone, with Smith saying Diggs will be a ‘number three’ going forward, and a guy will who barely be holding onto an NFL roster spot by 2025.
Check out the segment above as Smith details the precipitous decline from the former All-Pro, who may have cost the Bills a chance to win the Super Bowl after he dropped a crucial deep ball late in the fourth quarter vs. Kansas City in the AFC Divisional Round.
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