One of the biggest acquisitions of the NFL offseason went down yesterday, with the Texans trading for All-Pro WR Stefon Diggs from the Buffalo Bills. Diggs is one of the premier receivers in the league and played a big part in Buffalo being a perennial playoff team over the last four seasons. He’s joining a Texans offense led by AP Offensive Rookie of the Year QB C.J. Stroud, WRs Nico Collins and Tank Dell, RB Joe Mixon and TE Dalton Schultz.
Stroud and the Texans look like the immediate winners of this deal. Houston was already on a dramatic upward trajectory, advancing to the AFC Divisional Round last season. With the additions of Diggs and Mixon, and Dell returning from a season-ending injury, the Texans have arguably the best offense on paper in the NFL. From a betting perspective, they’ll be among the AFC favorites. Sneaky betting value on Stroud for MVP is probably a thing of the past already.
Buffalo Bills stock, on the other hand, hasn’t dipped this low since Diggs’ arrival before the 2020 season. They’ve been one of the most explosive teams in the NFL in that timeframe, with Diggs posting over 100 catches, 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns in each of his four seasons. Had it not been for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs making three trips to the Super Bowl over the last four years, Diggs might have been able to lift a Lombardi during his time as a Bill.
Bills QB Josh Allen stands as a big loser with the departure of his top receiving threat. Allen’s big year three breakout coincided with Diggs’ arrival in Buffalo, and we haven’t seen Allen produce an elite full season without Diggs.
That’s a bit of an un-nuanced narrative though, considering Allen is clearly now one of the best players in football and undisputed top fantasy football producer at his position. Additionally, in the second half of the 2023 season when the Bills won six of their last seven games and clinched the No. 2 seed in the AFC playoffs, Diggs was relatively quiet while Allen still looked like Allen. Not to mention, there’s a chance Diggs’ second half of 2023 could be a sign of his eventual decline.
Diggs leaves behind a huge void on the Bills depth chart. The team will likely be targeting the wide receiver position in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft, where the team holds the No. 28 and No. 60 overall picks in the first two rounds. If the Bills do land a receiver such as Brian Thomas Jr., Adonai Mitchell, Xavier Worthy or any other highly-touted prospect, they’ll be an extremely trendy pick in 2024 fantasy football.
On the Texans side of things, Diggs’ arrival could truly push the team over the top. Stroud ranks as the QB3 in dynasty on KeepTradeCut. Nico Collins, Tank Dell and Stefon Diggs rank as WRs 23, 25 and 33 at the time of this writing. How they rank and how they’ll finish in 2024 will be one of the big discussion points of the entire fantasy football offseason. With Diggs past the age of 30 and Collins and Dell both massively breaking out in 2023, my money would be on either Collins or Dell to lead the team in fantasy production.
As for Diggs himself, I’m still very interested in the former All-Pro if he can be had at a discount. Mike Evans, Keenan Allen, DeAndre Hopkins and Cooper Kupp have all had great seasons around Diggs’ age in recent years, and his track record far surpasses those of Collins and Dell as a bona fide WR1.
Everyone in this offense should eat, and Diggs’ days as a true WR1 for fantasy football might be over, but he should still be a value at the very least for 2024.
Elijah Southwick is the lead sports content writer for Degen Magazine. His work has appeared in several news and sports publications.