Stefon Diggs has been angling to get Von Miller on the Buffalo Bills long before the deal actually came to be last month.
Speaking Thursday at a news conference announcing his new, four-year contract extension, Diggs said he wanted the Bills to make a run at Miller before the trade deadline during the 2021 season.
Miller was eventually traded by the Denver Broncos to the Rams, helping Los Angeles win a Super Bowl.
“It was crazy because I’ve been working behind the scenes on that for a little while now,” Diggs said. “I was actually working on it before he went to L.A. because I felt like he would have been a nice piece for us to have pushing going into playoffs. I guess Denver was trying to deal him at the time. I was like, ‘He might be that push that we need,’ so I started working on it a little bit lightly, but I still had to focus on the season.”
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Diggs resumed his recruiting activities after the Rams won the Super Bowl, when he happened to run into Miller in Los Angeles.
“We started having conversations after the season,” Diggs said. “He was like, he was serious about it. I was like, ‘How serious are you?’ Because I had bumped into him in L.A., and I was like, ‘Well, you know what we’ve got going on here. What you see is what you get. You know what kind of team is this.’ I felt like he would be the right piece. He fit right in. Him signing with us, I feel like he’ll definitely help our team.”
Here are three more observations from Diggs’ news conference:
1. The sky is the limit for Gabriel Davis. The Bills’ third-year receiver, who set an NFL record with four touchdown catches in a playoff game in the divisional-round loss to the Chiefs, currently projects as the team’s No. 2 receiver. After his breakout performance in the postseason, fans are eager to see what Davis can do for an encore.
“I won’t put a ceiling on Gabriel Davis,” Diggs said. “I can’t say how good that he’ll be because he’s already displayed that he can play. Flat out, he can play. He can make plays at a high level. He can catch contested balls, he’s a big receiver, he can run. So he has all the intangibles of being, (expletive), one of the best receivers in this game.
“I won’t put a ceiling on him just like I won’t put it on no guy. But that’s a guy I see every day, he works hard, he keeps his nose clean, he’s smart and he’s a good guy to be around.”
2. If he plays out his new contract, Diggs will see the Bills’ new stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2026. He’s been through that before, when he was with the Vikings in 2016 when U.S. Bank Stadium opened. Before that, the Vikings played two years in the outdoor stadium on the University of Minnesota’s campus.
“It's gonna be an experience,” Diggs said of the Bills getting a new stadium. “The first time I went through it with a new stadium, I gotta say, I really appreciate it because the first year was outside and it was extremely cold. So, coming back to Buffalo, kind of brought it back to my rookie year of just being outside and I don't know, it's like a different type of football when you're outside and it's cold and some people don't really want to be out there.
“So, for me, it kind of came full circle when I came here, I was like this, ‘Well, you know, back to old times, just in the grind and making things work.’ So, being a part of a new stadium, I'm excited, something I look forward to. I was hoping I could interject with some changes just a dome open, close it a little bit, but we'll take it. We got a quarterback that can make it happen.”
3. Diggs had some company Thursday. His younger brother, Trevon, attended the news conference. Trevon Diggs made waves on social media earlier in the offseason when he tweeted about wanting to play with his brother. Sportscenter used that tweet to ask “Can you imagine?”
Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s response was straight to the point: “No.”
Asked if Allen had anything else to say to him about the idea, Stefon Diggs said the message he got was largely the same.
“He told me, 'Hell no,' ” Diggs said.
