Bills should be thanking the Chargers after Stefon Diggs trade

The NFL world woke up to a blockbuster trade on Wednesday as the Buffalo Bills shipped Stefon Diggs off to the Houston Texans for a 2025 second, 2025 fifth and 2024 sixth-round pick. With this trade, the Bills now join the LA Chargers on the list of teams with great quarterbacks who have awful receiving corps.

Unlike the Chargers, the Bills do not have the fifth overall pick to use in the 2024 NFL Draft to add a marquee receiver. Nor does the team have the cap space that the Chargers created by trading Allen. In fact, Buffalo absorbed a massive dead cap hit just to get rid of Diggs.

The two teams are tied together deeper than just being in a similar situation, though. Without the Keenan Allen trade to the Bears, the Diggs trade to the Texans may not have happened. Before they were interested in Diggs, the Texans were going after Allen.

Chargers are partially to credit for Stefon Diggs-Texans trade

If the Texans would have gotten the first wide receiver they pursued then they never would have traded for Diggs. Granted, the Bills likely would have traded Diggs no matter what as they obviously wanted him out, but it would not be to the Texans.

In fact, the Bills should be sending the Chargers a thank you basket for trading Allen to the Bears instead of the Texans. If Allen would have been traded to Houston then it is hard to see any other teams in the league that would have been willing to take the Diggs gamble.

He is a good wide receiver, sure, but he comes with baggage. The Bears still would have been a receiver-hungry team but the last thing they would want to do is add a receiver with baggage to play with a rookie QB. Chicago would have been far better off going after someone like Tee Higgins if Allen fell through.

Diggs is at the tail end of his prime with an expensive contract that just kicked in. Yet still, the Texans were willing to headline the package with a second-round pick. It is hard to see any other teams in the league doing that. If it were not for Houston, the Bills may have only gotten a fourth-round pick at most.

Just look at the other receiver trades that have been made in the league. One year of Allen was worth a fourth-round pick. Would a team like the Patriots really offer more than that for Diggs? Never.

It might be painful for Bills fans to part ways with Diggs but it was obviously a move that the team had to make. Because of the Chargers, the Bills were able to get the absolute maximum for Diggs. That all would have changed if Allen went to Houston instead.