Bills take on unprecedented cap hit to trade Stefon Diggs to Texans
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Why did the Bills trade Stefon Diggs?
The answers to that question go deeper than General Manager Brandon Beane cared to share publicly after agreeing to a blockbuster deal Wednesday that sent the team's top receiver to Houston without netting any help for this season.
Beane acknowledged that the roster looks less threatening now than it did last week, urging fans to wait to judge the depth chart until September, but reiterated that the team is still pushing to win this season. Adding in the fact that the Bills took on an unprecedented salary cap hit to facilitate the deal and actually lost cap space in the move, it appears they saw significant benefit in subtracting the team's top receiving threat from the roster.
"Are we better today? Probably not," Beane admitted. "It's a work in progress. ... I would just hope people know I'm competitive as hell. I ain't giving in. We're going to work through this."
Beane wouldn't say if the star receiver or his agent asked for a trade, but Houston wasn't the first team to inquire about Diggs.
"You don't want to get into every reason you make every move," Beane said. "It's not one thing with any player. We've traded other players here, we've acquired other players, him being one. Everything you do, you think is the best decision. You weigh the pros and the cons of every decision like this. We don't take it lightly. But you always make it in the best decision of the Bills. And that's what we're trying to do here.
"The value seemed to make sense and the timing made sense, for them and for us," Beane added. "We worked on the deal and got it finalized today."
Diggs' tenure was filled with both incredible performance and controversy that the team worked to prevent from boiling over. Diggs is the franchise's all-time leader in receiving yards per game owns both of the top two receiving yardage seasons in team history. He also made news cycles and provided talk-show fodder about his on-field behavior, his absence from mandatory practice and his cryptic social media posts, not to mention questionable posts made by his All-Pro brother: "Man 14 Gotta get up outta there," the Cowboys' Trevon Diggs posted after a Bills loss in November.
The Bills, like all professional teams, begrudgingly make allowance for some headaches if they come paired with elite play. But if performance starts to drop, as Diggs' did last year in his age-30 season, patience quickly wears thin.
"You're always putting everything into there," Beane said when asked if Diggs' perceived discontent factored into the trade, "but Stef's a very competitive guy and I wouldn't want to change that for him. I don't think that was something -- when we acquired him, I think we were very aware of his competitive nature. ... Is it easy? Heck no. It's hard. Sometimes in this seat you gotta make difficult decisions."
The financial impact is part of the reason the trade was such a difficult decision for Beane. The Bills, already working with limited cap space, took on an additional $3.2 million against the cap by making the move. Houston will pay Diggs' $18.5 million base salary, but the bonus money already paid out by the Bills that was scheduled to count against the cap in future seasons prior to the trade all accelerated onto this season's salary cap when the trade was executed.
That accounting charge, known as "dead" cap space, leaves the Bills with more than $31 million on the books this season for a player who won't even be on the team. According to numbers shared by salary cap guru Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com, no team in NFL history has ever taken on that much dead cap space for a non-quarterback.
Diggs, despite all his accolades, seemingly wore out his welcome in Buffalo, as he did previously in Minnesota. The Bills are no better for shipping him out, didn't acquire an asset to replace him this season, and took on an unprecedented financial burden to delete him from the roster. They did gain financial flexibility in 2025 and a future second-round pick in the trade, but that will be of little solace this season as the team looks for new ways to bring its first Lombardi trophy to Buffalo.
"Any time you make a move like this ... you're trying to win," Beane said. "Sometimes people may not see that. This is by no means the Bills giving up or trying to take a step back or anything like that. Everything we do we're trying to win. We're going to continue to do that. It's April the 3rd; we'll continue to work on this roster and make sure we're ready to play come September."
Highest dead cap hits in NFL history
Courtesy of OverTheCap.com
| Player | Team | Pos | Year | Dead Money |
| Russell Wilson | Broncos | QB | 2024 | $53,000,000 |
| Matt Ryan | Falcons | QB | 2022 | $40,525,000 |
| Aaron Rodgers | Packers | QB | 2023 | $40,313,570 |
| Tom Brady | Buccaneers | QB | 2023 | $35,104,000 |
| Carson Wentz | Eagles | QB | 2021 | $33,820,611 |
| Russell Wilson | Broncos | QB | 2025 | $32,000,000 |
| Stefon Diggs | Bills | WR | 2024 | $31,096,000 |
| Kirk Cousins | Vikings | QB | 2024 | $28,500,000 |
| Leonard Williams | Giants | DT | 2023 | $26,936,389 |
| Russell Wilson | Seahawks | QB | 2022 | $26,000,000 |
| Jared Goff | Rams | QB | 2021 | $24,700,000 |
| Khalil Mack | Bears | EDGE | 2022 | $24,000,000 |
| Brandin Cooks | Texans | WR | 2023 | $22,220,741 |
| Brandin Cooks | Rams | WR | 2020 | $21,800,000 |
| Haason Reddick | Eagles | EDGE | 2024 | $21,515,000 |
| Allen Robinson | Rams | WR | 2023 | $21,450,000 |
| Von Miller | Broncos | EDGE | 2021 | $21,402,778 |
| Antonio Brown | Steelers | WR | 2019 | $21,120,000 |
| DeAndre Hopkins | Cardinals | WR | 2023 | $21,077,776 |
| Jamal Adams | Seahawks | S | 2024 | $20,833,334 |