Stefon Diggs will immediately become the
WR1, pushing John Brown to the WR2 role.
Stefon Diggs was once referred to as Antonio Brown lite. After months
of cryptic tweets, particularly in the offseason, we began wondering
if that was true in more ways than one. His most recent cryptic
tweet turned out to be accurate as Diggs was given a new beginning
in Buffalo.The Diggs trade has an impact on many different fronts.
Let’s discuss them in turn.
Still just 26 years old, Diggs has multiple years of his prime
remaining. There was never any question regarding his talent,
but there were certainly concerns about his ability to stay healthy
as well as his situation and opportunity.
In Buffalo, Diggs will immediately become the WR1, pushing John
Brown to the WR2 role, which he more suited for anyway. Diggs
is going to the lead the Bills in targets and won’t have
to compete with a player as talented as Adam Thielen, but there
aren’t exactly that many targets to go around. Josh Allen
attempted just 461 passes last season with 115 of those going
to Brown. While Diggs is better than Brown, the target distribution
between the two will be tricky simply because Diggs has Brown
to compete with while Brown was the clear top option in the passing
game last season. This makes 115 targets feel like an absolute
ceiling for Diggs.
There’s also an issue with the quality of targets. Kirk
Cousins completed 69.7% of his passes during his two seasons with
Diggs in Minnesota. Josh Allen has a career completion percentage
of 56.3%. There is no chance Diggs will see an 82.8% catchable
target rate from Allen.
While this may seem all doom and gloom for Diggs, there is some
silver lining. Diggs is a talented receiver and will be the true
alpha for what most perceive to be a downgrade in overall passing
attack. Maybe, for the first time since he broke out, Diggs will
actually be properly priced on draft day. Here are Diggs’
draft prices compared to his finishes.
2019: WR12 ADP, WR25 finish
2018: WR11 ADP, WR12 finish
2017: WR26 ADP, WR13 finish
2016: WR43 ADP, WR15 finish
Diggs broke out in 2016 after a strong rookie year finish in
2015. He was a great value in 2017 as well. After 2017, the entire
world bought into Diggs as a low-end WR1. Despite his back-to-
back borderline WR1 finishes in 2017 and 2018, Diggs mixed in
numerous duds and was hurt a lot more than his three total games
missed would indicate. Also bear in mind when referencing 2018,
that was the season Kirk Cousins went full gunslinger and attempted
606 passes. Diggs saw 149 targets. That is never happening again.
With the move to Buffalo being an obvious downgrade at quarterback
and Diggs coming off a disappointing season, his ADP could drop
into the fourth round. Looking at it in terms of the 2019 season,
if Diggs is going for around the same price as guys like Chris
Godwin, Tyler Lockett, Kenny Golladay, and Robert Woods were,
that is more in line with where he should be taken. Whether Diggs
is a viable target for fantasy owners in 2020 will hinge on his
cost.
After seeing 115 targets as the clear WR1 in 2019, John Brown
is going to see that number dip. Cole Beasley was second on the
team with 106 targets and was a legitimate fantasy WR3, especially
later in the season. With Diggs in town, there is no chance both
Brown and Beasley can be fantasy viable as there just aren’t
enough Josh Allen passes to go around. The most likely outcome
is the two cannibalize each other. Brown will out-target Beasley,
but Beasley will have valuable PPR games against teams that are
vulnerable to the slot. Brown will likely revert to more of a
boom/bust option. He will splash, but he will be less reliable.
Entering his third season, Josh Allen now has the best supporting
cast of his career. Diggs is enough to make that true. However,
Allen is who he is. He has never been accurate at any point in
his football career going all the way back to high school and
that is not going to change now. Allen was the overall QB8 in
2019. That is a number he is capable of beating and while Diggs’
arrival certainly helps, he it isn’t some massive boost
to Allen’s fantasy value. He should be treated as a low
QB1 with massive weekly upside.
The Vikings
Now that we’ve covered how Diggs will impact his new team,
let’s see what he left behind. There was a time when Diggs
and Thielen were the best wide receiver duo in the NFL. However,
the Vikings had nothing behind them. I would argue the set of
pass catchers behind Diggs and Thielen were amongst the worst
in recent memory. With Diggs gone, Thielen is primed for a huge
bounce back season.
Even though he’s 30 years old, Thielen didn’t break
out until age 26 and he has plenty of tread left on his tires.
The Vikings still want to be a run oriented team, but it’s
hard to imagine Cousins attempting just 444 passes again. That
number should at least reach 500 and with Diggs out of the picture,
Thielen is going to lead the team in target share by a substantial
margin.
I can say with a high degree of certainty that the Vikings will
draft a wide receiver within the first three rounds. I wouldn’t
be surprised if they took a second receiver on day three. That
rookie will be stepping into a substantial role with a good chance
at making an immediate impact, assuming he isn’t terrible. It’s
really the ideal situation because no matter who it is, he’s not
really a threat to Thielen because it’s unlikely any rookie will
perform better than Diggs. At the same time, there are 94 targets
vacated by Diggs that, combined with a logical increase in Cousins’
pass attempts, could almost entirely go to a rookie wide receiver
making the Vikings draft one to keep your eye on.
It is possible that the departure of Diggs provides more opportunities
for tight ends Kyle
Rudolph and Irv
Smith, but I don’t see the tight ends heavily impacted by
this trade as long as we operate under the very likely assumption
that the Vikings draft a wide receiver early.
Final Thoughts
For Diggs, this is probably a lateral move more than a downgrade
given the decrease in target competition offset by the drop in
target quality and the perception that the Bills are a worse landing
spot.
For Thielen, it’s a clear positive as there will be no
debate who the WR1 and the target hog is in Minnesota. His value
increases.
For Brown, it’s a significant downgrade as Josh Allen’s
WR2 is not a desirable fantasy asset, nor a reliable one.
For Cousins, it’s a clear downgrade, but Cousins wasn’t
much more than a fantasy streamer anyway.
For Allen, it’s an upgrade, but not a relevant one as
Allen is who he is as a passer. Allen derives his fantasy value
from his rushing. Diggs certainly doesn’t hurt, but he helps
the Bills as a whole more than Allen as a fantasy asset.
