Stefon Diggs keeps telling the Bills that they stink. Here's why teammates love it

And he also is constantly hurling the same choice word at teammates.

“He loves to tell people that they stink,“ tight end Dawson Knox said. “I don’t know if that’s actually from their aroma or from their playing standpoint.”

“It’s super simple,” wide receiver Gabe Davis said. “When he yells at you that you stink, and he says it in his aggressive way … I mean, it’s just so harsh, so simple. But yet, it stings real bad. So, hearing him say that to people is just the funniest thing.”

“But it’s all out of love,” Knox adds. “You’re trying to motivate the best out of people. … If someone told me that I stink, I know I’d up my game a little bit.”

The insult can cut deep, teammates say.

“You don’t really hear, ‘You stink!’ nowadays,” Knox said. “So, now that it’s coming back, it’s almost more insulting than ‘You suck.’ ”

“Hearing ‘You suck!’ isn’t even bad,” Davis said. “But hearing, ‘You stink’? Like, you’re that bad? So, it’s awesome to hear that from him.”

Teammates agree: It’s awesome, and it’s unrelenting. For Diggs, stink isn’t just a verb. Sometimes it’s the name he calls players, but once again, out of love.

“I just have a nickname for them,” Diggs said. “You know how you call your girlfriend, or like you nickname your girlfriend, like ‘Stink’? Or ‘Stinka Butt’?”

Diggs breaks into a smile as he says it. He knows this all might sound a little ridiculous. He also knows it works.

“I look at them, and like, ‘Hey, Stink,’ because I always like to call them that. I say: ‘Y’all stink.’ ‘Hey, Stink, nice to see you,’ ” Diggs said. “‘Hey, Stink! What’s up!’ in a playful way.”

As Diggs enters his ninth season in the league and his fourth with the Bills, the team values his voice in every way it echoes. He’s a three-time captain. A knowledgeable star receiver. And an A-plus trash talker. But enveloped in that, he’s not so secretly a motivator. Where some on the outside might see a diva, his teammates see a winner. Or some might also, on occasion, say a stinker.

Now, like rubber, the insult bounces back to him, too.

“I actually started calling him ‘Stinka Butt,’ ” receiver Trent Sherfield said. “That’s just like a thing that we do now. Like I’ll see him: ‘Hey, what’s up, Stinka Butt?’ … It’s just a running joke now.”

And if Diggs’ jokes swaddle constructive criticism, that’s all good with the Bills.

“The truth hurts sometimes, and you know, Stef is gonna give it to you the harsh way, but that’s the best way to get it,” Davis said. “It makes you really want to prove him wrong, and work on your craft and become better.

“So, when you are doing things that he was getting on you about, it’s like, ‘Now look, Stef!’ Like, ‘I’m freaking doing it better than you.’ ”

‘It’s trash talking from a good place’

Anyone is susceptible to Diggs’ standard insult at any time – quarterback Josh Allen says he’ll get a “you stink!” during pickup basketball – but there’s one group that definitely knows to expect it: the defensive backs. That’s partly natural – Diggs believes he can beat any of them on any rep. But it’s also partly educational.

“I talk all the (stuff) in the world, but at the end of the day, you can ask any of the DBs – I want the best out of them,” Diggs said.

“Part of me challenging them is really just putting them on a daily scale of: ‘Be better today.’ If you can’t guard me today, you can’t guard me tomorrow. It’s more so like a challenge.”

So, he yells, and he yells, and he yells. But it’s not just to torment those who have to practice against him.

“I tell them all the time: 70% to 80% of receivers in the league probably not going to be like me, and you see me each and every day,” Diggs said. “I don’t take a break. I don’t take a day off. ... If you can win here a couple of times, you’ll win a lot.”

“I’ve seen that in real time, for sure,” Sherfield added. “He will sit down (with the defense) and say, ‘You know, this is what I’m thinking on this release,’ or, ‘This is what you should be doing to counteract that,’ or whatever it may be.”

Some believe in wrapping medicine in something sweet and palatable. Diggs might take more of the opposite approach. His words and inflection might be biting, but at their essence is advice rather than animosity.

“100%, it’s trash talking from a good place,” Diggs said. “It’s like that tough love. Of course, I don’t want to lose regardless, but at least when it comes to me, I want you to go dominate when it comes to somebody else.

“We’re on the same team. I want you to win. But I still gotta kick your (butt).”

There are, of course, times when Diggs doesn’t kick butt.

“Something had happened where the offense didn’t complete something,” cornerback Siran Neal said. “The defense stopped, and we got off the field. And I was on defense, and he looked at me, he was like, ‘You stink! You stink.’ I said, ‘How do I stink, and you guys got off the field?’ And he just starts yelling, ‘You stink! All y’all stink!’ ”

Neal also is no stranger to Diggs’ chatter. Their back and forth over whether Neal was holding Diggs during one practice spilled into the fieldhouse and interrupted an Allen news conference. (Neal said that ultimately the film showed he was right, and that Diggs has yet to fully acknowledge that.) Diggs even spent the next day watching Neal, and yelling at him from the sideline when Neal was playing and Diggs was not.

But when Neal had a big pass breakup in the preseason, Diggs was the first to run on to the field, and he went all the way over to celebrate the cornerback.

“We chop it up,” Neal said, “And he just keeps telling me: ‘Keep going. You got abilities to be great.’ ”

Neal said they are like brothers, and they lean on each other. Plus, Diggs’ teasing can only carry so much weight.

“Obviously, we know who stinks and who don’t stink,” Neal said. “If a guy stinks, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be here.”

So, Neal dishes it right back.

“I can get in his head, too,” Neal said. “I tell him like: ‘I’m a special team player that covers a No. 1 receiver.’ He gets mad about it, and then I say: ‘Stop crying about it.’

“ ‘Play like you’re a $100 million guy versus a special-teams player. But you can’t get open versus a special-team player, so now you crying.’ ”

Sometimes, the emotions do flare. During camp, Diggs went across the field to give cornerback Kaiir Elam an earful, after the two had been tangled up on a play. After practice, Elam first laughed when asked about the heated exchange, then gave his version.

“He said, ‘I love you, Kaiir,’ ” Elam deadpanned, “And I told him, ‘I love you, too.’ ”

True or not, safety Micah Hyde wouldn’t know. Hyde tunes out most of Diggs’ chirping.

“To be honest, I just when Stef’s yellin’, he’s doing that stuff I kind of just don’t even hear,” Hyde said. “I’m just like, ‘whatever Stef.’ ”

But sometimes Diggs is just as effective when he’s silent.

“He didn’t say anything,” Hyde said, “But he beat me one time, early in training camp on a slant for a touchdown. And I give the inside, I just knew right away. I was like, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

“And he caught the touchdown. He threw me the ball. So, I threw it back at him. There were no words exchanged, but yeah, he was talking junk by flipping me the ball. So, that pissed me off pretty good.”

Hyde and Diggs used to go at it in the NFC North, Hyde with the Packers and Diggs with the Vikings.

“He’s the same guy who just loves to talk a little junk,” Hyde said. “You can tell that’s the way he was raised – fighting and competing. And it’s good, man. That’s what you want in your teammates, to go out there and force you to be better.”

‘I’m starting to put it together’

From position coach to receiving corps, there are a lot of new faces around Diggs.

Davis is in his fourth year, so he’s known Diggs the longest of the group. Khalil Shakir is entering his second, and the rest of the receivers – Sherfield, Deonte Harty and Justin Shorter – are all offseason additions. Even the practice-squad wideouts have been turned over.

Wide receivers coach Adam Henry, who is also new to the Bills, values the extra steps Diggs is taking to onboard new Bills.

“It’s monumental, because leadership is quality that most people want,” Henry said. “They want the fruit, they want the money, but they don’t want to bear the responsibility. ... But for him, he accepts the challenge of being a leader.”

Diggs just does it his own way. Take watching film, for example. If Diggs sees something bad, sometimes he wants to see it again.

“He’ll say, ‘Coach, rewind that back?’ ” Henry said with a laugh. “ ’Now that’s trash. That stinks.’ … ‘Let me see that again.’ ”

“Meeting rooms are goofy,” Harty said. “It’s obviously serious, but we have fun, we mix fun into it. Obviously, (there’s) a joke behind it, but at the same time, you’re getting knowledge behind it, too.”

Diggs will talk about plenty of other things in the meeting room, too. Henry can tell Diggs is well read, and Diggs likes catching people off-guard with all he’s learned.

“He’ll say different things,” Henry said, “And he’ll say, ‘Oh, you didn’t know that? Oh, you didn’t think I knew that, huh, coach?’ ”

Diggs has talked in the past about the books that have challenged him. “Leadership for Dummies” in the summer of 2021. “The Alchemist” last winter. Lately, he’s been reading “Unlock the Power of You.”

Behind it all, even when the trash talking is fun for him and for witnesses, Diggs is intentional about why and how he does it. He’s trying to unlock the power of his teammates.

“When I was coming in, I didn’t have that advice or guidance,” Diggs said. “I feel like if you can shorten the learning curve for ‘em, the faster they’ll play and the more confidence they’ll get.”

Sometimes the message is big picture: Never lose your confidence. But Diggs also takes his time in between reps to talk through what he’s seeing on the practice fields. Harty and Sherfield are not new to the NFL, but new to the Bills. Either way, there’s still more that they can each take from Diggs, a former fifth-round pick who’s had 1,200-plus receiving yards in each of his seasons with the Bills.

“You can just tell he’s had to work his way up,” Sherfield said. “He wants to win. Like, he genuinely cares. You can tell he’s sacrificed a lot to be where he’s at.”

Practice squad wide receivers Andy Isabella, Marcell Ateman, Tyrell Shavers and Bryan Thompson have all taken tidbits from Diggs. Ateman has talked through routes and how to create separation. Shavers and Thompson, both rookies, say watching Diggs each day informs how they are approaching the NFL. Shavers watches “every step, every angle.” Both marvel at the opportunities to learn.

“It’s a blessing being able to learn from one of the best receivers to ever play this game, honestly in my opinion,” Thompson said. “To be able to watch him and see how he goes about his craft every day is honestly something that I needed and is a blessing to me. And I’m gonna take every note possible.”

All four have picked up on Diggs’ energy and consistency.

“I love him as a leader, and it’s fun playing next to him,” Isabella said.

And when you’re playing next to Diggs – whether in practice or in a game – it gives the star receiver a closeup look when something clicks. When something he said translates. When something no longer stinks.

“We have this thing where like, I’ll give him this look,” Davis said. “And he knows, he starts laughing. I’d be like, ‘You know, I’m starting to put that s—t together. I’m starting to put it together.’ … When it comes to that stuff, he’s like a big brother, man. He’s awesome. I mean, I couldn’t have a better receiver here to work with and learn from.”

In Diggs, Davis gets to learn from someone who’s skilled, competitive, and, of course, consistent.

“Today we broke down the huddle,” Sherfield said in August. “And (Diggs) was like, ‘Good job defense.’

“ ‘But you guys still stink!’ ”