After months of rumors, the Buffalo Bills on Wednesday morning agreed to trade veteran WR Stefon Diggs, a 2024 sixth-round pick, and a 2025 fifth-round pick to the Houston Texans in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick. The Texans add another weapon to a reloaded offense that already featured budding superstar and second-year QB C.J. Stroud, WR Nico Collins, and WR Tank Dell, in addition to adding veteran RB Joe Mixon this offseason. For the Bills, this appears to be the final move of an offseason roster purge that saw them lose WR Gabie Davis, S Jordan Poyer, CB Tre’Davious White, LB Leonard Floyd, and now Diggs.
Let’s examine the immediate implications and fantasy impact of Diggs moving from the Bills to the Texans.
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Stefon Diggs Traded to Houston Texans
The Bills are trading Stefon Diggs to the Texans in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick (via the Vikings), per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. In addition to Diggs, Houston will also receive a 2024 sixth-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick from Buffalo.
The marriage between Diggs and the Bills had appeared strained for a while, and this trade is an abrupt divorce settlement. At the Pro Bowl in February, Diggs told NFL Network, “Obviously, there’s a lot of changes going on, a lot of things going on. … I can’t tell you what the future holds, but I’m still being me.” Diggs’ future is now in Houston.
For a modest price, the Texans are acquiring a talented, mercurial, highly accomplished, highly paid receiver who’ll round out what could be the best group of pass catchers in the league. Before the 2022 season, Diggs signed a four-year contract extension worth $96 million, including $70 million in guaranteed money.
The Texans are clearly going all in while they have talented young QB C.J. Stroud playing on a rookie contract. By the time the Texans have to offer Stroud a contract extension, Diggs’ contract will have expired. Stroud now has a WR group that features Diggs, Nico Collins and Tank Dell, plus TE Dalton Schultz and newly acquired RB Joe Mixon. It’s an impressive array of skill players, to say the least.
Diggs has produced six straight seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards and four straight seasons with more than 100 receptions. Over his four seasons in Buffalo, he averaged 111.3 catches, 1,343 receiving yards and 9.3 touchdowns.
But Diggs’ production crashed during the second half of the 2023 season. From Week 10 through the end of the season (including the Bills’ two playoff games), Diggs averaged 42.2 yards per game. He averaged just 5.3 yards per target over those 10 games and scored one touchdown.
It would be far-fetched to think that the 30-year-old Diggs has “lost it” or tumbled over the age cliff, but it’s reasonable to wonder why his productivity took such a nose dive despite playing with Josh Allen, one of the best quarterbacks on the planet. Diggs will get to play with another mega-talented quarterback, but he’ll have to share targets with Collins, Dell and Schultz, which makes it unlikely that he’ll be able to produce WR1 numbers.
I tentatively have Diggs ranked WR23 for redraft leagues, WR40 for dynasty.
Fantasy managers will also have to temper their enthusiasm for Collins and Dell now that Diggs will be joining the Texans’ WR corps.
Collins had an exciting third-year breakout in 2023, racking up 80 catches, 1,297 yards and eight touchdowns. With Dell sideline with a broken fibula late in the season, Collins had 30-497-3 over Houston’s last five regular-season games. Collins, who just turned 25, is still an appealing dynasty asset — I have him ranked WR20 in dynasty — but his redraft value for 2024 is destined to take a hit now that he’s part of an ensemble WR cast. I had him ranked WR14 in redraft before the Diggs trade but have dropped him to WR28.
Dell had 47-709-7 in 10 games last season before getting hurt early in his 11th game. Dell’s lightning quickness makes him a unique weapon, but at 5-10 and 165 pounds, he doesn’t have the body type to be a 100-catch receiver. His target upside will be limited this year in such a WR-rich environment. I’m ranking Dell WR37 for redraft, WR29 for dynasty.
Schultz was on the TE1/TE2 border before the Diggs trade. I had him at TE13 but have dropped him to TE16 for redraft, and I’ve dropped him two spots to TE19 in dynasty.
The obvious beneficiary for the Texans, both in real life and fantasy is Stroud. He finished QB9 in fantasy points per game last season among QBs who made at least six starts, finishing with 4,108 yards and 23 TD passes in 15 games. It’s not hard to imagine Stroud throwing for 4,500-plus yards and 30 TD passes now that he has such an embarrassment of riches at wide receiver. Stroud is my QB5 in redraft and my QB3 in dynasty.
The Bills are getting a total makeover at the WR position. They let Gabriel Davis walk in free agency, and now their leading receiver from each of the last four seasons is gone. Buffalo’s top three remaining receivers are Khalil Shakir and free-agent additions Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins.
It seems inevitable that the Bills will spend an early-round draft pick on a wide receiver later this month, but the Diggs trade still boosts the value of Shakir and Curtis (and perhaps Hollins, too). Accounting for the inevitability of at least one talented rookie receiver joining the Bills’ roster, I now have Shakir ranked WR53 for redraft, Samuel WR64.
Josh Allen has led all quarterback in fantasy scoring in three of the last four seasons, finishing runner-up to Patrick Mahomes in 2022. He was my redraft QB1 before the Diggs trade, and there’s a reasonable case that he should remain the QB1, but I’ve dropped him to QB2 behind Lamar Jackson.
Perhaps the biggest fantasy beneficiary from Diggs’ departure is Bills TE Dalton Kincaid. He had a promising rookie season, finishing with 73-673-2 on 91 targets. Kincaid’s numbers spiked late in the season. He had 87 and 84 receiving yards in Buffalo’s last two regular-season games, and he had 8-104-1 in the Bills’ two playoff games. With Diggs out of the picture, Kincaid could be in line for 120 or more targets this season, and he has a legitimate chance to finish as the overall TE1. I’m ranking him TE3 in redraft behind only Sam LaPorta and Travis Kelce.
The Diggs trade also bodes well for Bills RB James Cook, since the Bills could be slightly more run-heavy without Diggs, and since Allen could throw to his running backs more often. Cook finished RB11 in half-point PPR fantasy scoring last season, and I’m ranking him RB9 for 2024.
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