Did the Vikings “Betray” Diggs? ESPN.com offers new insight
Joe Johnson
|
Note: I know, we have Jefferson now so I should “let it go” and my butt may stop hurting, but, you’ll see why I deem this important enough for your morning Minnesota Vikings news barfarama.
I’ve covered former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs’ first season in Buffalo with some interest. The Vikings and Bills came together in a rare win-win trade last off-season, and both sides seem ecstatic with their respective teams’ decisions, but it’s worth dissecting exactly how we got here as it could tell us more about both the Vikings and Diggs.
First, some context.
Here are a couple of articles I wrote after the Diggs trade and this season.
As you can see, outside of some sort of gigantic behind the scenes toxic leadership situation, I never felt that Diggs had anything to be upset about with the Vikings. They rewarded him with a massive deal despite never crossing the 1k yards mark at the time, or completing a full 16-game season.
The team also pulled out all the stops to put the best position-by-position roster in the NFL through 2019. The team also made it to the NFC Championship game and upset the Saints in the Wild Card round last season.
Despite leading in a game they eventually won, Diggs was seen throwing his helmet in frustration over not being a bigger part of the passing attack. While by itself not a huge deal, when you look at everything else and the whole “Diggs-being-Diggs” defense that the Vikings used time and time again, it was a sign that Diggs’ priorities weren’t necessarily the success of the team (unless that success mainly relied on him).
Perhaps it was the chemistry between Cousins and Adam Thielen at the start of 2018, the first regular season games since Diggs’ ‘Minneapolis Miracle’. Perhaps it was Zimmer’s coaching style. We may never know but thanks to more and more interviews and deep dives by sites like ESPN.com we are getting closer.
First, further context.
The Substack newsletter by credentialed NFL head Tyler Dunne, called GoLongTD, recently reported on the current regime with some surprising insights from current and past players.
A large part from this article that stuck out to me at the time (and even more so now) was the following:
“Past co-workers describe the head coach as everything from “a very disgruntled, pissy old man” to “joyless” to “a big blamer” to “an equal-opportunity asshole” to “pissed about everything.” One source close to the team’s inner-workings believes his intensity worked initially with so many young players dying to prove themselves but, as time passed, it became white noise.”
Initially. Being the keyword.
“Everything is everyone else’s fault,” this source says. “Or the answer is always, ‘You have to work harder.’ Maybe it’s your scheme. Maybe it’s your stubbornness. Maybe it’s your inability to adjust. Maybe it’s your lack of communication. If you keep bringing Zimmer back and Spielman back and Cousins gets extended for $30 million a year, you’re going to lose the locker room because you’re losing some guys.”
I bring this up because of a deep dive into Diggs’ career and first season with the Buffalo Bills. The article, titled ‘‘Loyalty and trust’ fuel Stefon Diggs in first season with Buffalo Bills’, and has some insights into who Diggs is as a person.
The article states:
“Part of that digging involved a conversation between Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and Maryland coach Mike Locksley, who served together as co-offensive coordinators at Alabama in 2017.
Locksley recruited Diggs to Maryland in 2012 and they remain close, as do Locksley and Daboll. On the night the trade was announced on March 16, Daboll called his former co-coordinator to get some background on the new focal point of his offense’s passing game.”
Outside of talk of Diggs’ old school worth ethic and lack of hobbies (and calling Diggs emotional outbursts “real” and thus admirable), one of the main takeaways I noticed was from the following:
“The only advice I gave to Brian about Stef was Stef is huge on trust,” Locksley said. “That’s where he and I are so much alike, in that he will give you everything he has if he knows that you care about him and he knows he can trust you to be consistent with who you are.”
I think you know where this is going:
“When trust is broken with him, I will tell you that it’s really hard to repair … because he believes in loyalty and trust — that’s part of his DNA.”
The question then becomes what did the Vikings do to violate that trust? As I laid out in the “What Exactly did you have to be mad about Diggs” article above, the team seemingly treated him well during his time here in terms of paying him for his potential over his output/health and also in terms of surrounding him with talent to help take advantage of his talent.
People were click to blame Cousins after the trade which shows a staggering ignorance when it comes to… Well everything. Cousins elevated Diggs’ game, gave him his first and second 1k seasons, over 100 grabs alone in 2018, and helped Diggs become a trade target worth what Buffalo did to get him.
Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll added something that I think is telling:
“[Locksley] said it would be a perfect match — him knowing me and Stef,” Daboll said. “That’s what I pride myself on, being real with these guys and just telling them things straight up and having their backs.”
If there’s one thing that Zimmer is known for in a negative sense with his players it’s slamming them from time-to-time in the media. Things got so bad a few seasons ago that Zimmer held a meeting with the recently retired Chad Greenway to see how we could improve as a head coach.
But Zimmer did just say coaching his corners this season was like coaching “Kindergartners”, so, there’s that.
“That’s all Stef craves. He’s highly, highly competitive, he’s very smart, he’s a good teammate and he’s real. Stef’s real, he wears his emotions on his sleeves and that’s what I respect about him.'”
Real? Sure.
You could argue that anyone who has emotional outbursts is keeping it “Real” because they have no internal filter/monologue, but that just sounds like the Bills priming their own version of “Diggs being Diggs”, even if they don’t realize it yet.
So there you have it.
Diggs keeps it real and didn’t feel like the Vikings were loyal to him despite his contract, and changing how NFL (quarterback) contracts are done in order to bring him some consistency and talent at the QB spot. After trading a first for Sam Bradford after Teddy’s gruesome nigh career/lower leg ending injury before the 2016 season.
I personally can’t recall a time where Zimmer slammed Diggs in the media. In fact, Zimmer went out of his way to praise Diggs (in his own way) when asked about the trade:
“Honestly, Diggs did not have to go. We really didn’t have any intention of trading him. Really what happened was Buffalo came in and gave us all those picks. We were up against it in the salary cap, so we just felt like we could save some money and get a bunch of picks.
I wish him well. He’s a good kid. He worked hard for me. If you said somebody was a pain in the butt, you probably wouldn’t say it was him. I hope he has a great career and finishes up strong.”
Even when Diggs was a major distraction on social media they tried to play it off with the Diggs being Diggs mantra I’m tired of bringing up.
Looks like Diggs, though, felt that he was betrayed somehow, and that’s why he’s in Buffalo. Perhaps it was the offensive meddling by Zimmer as laid out in the aforementioned GoLongTD article:
““There’s a reason Minnesota never injected RPOs into its scheme like every other smart team seemed to after Nick Foles (miraculously) upset Tom Brady in the Super Bowl — Zimmer purposely mucked those plays up and then chastised the offense for being too gimmicky.
It became a running joke with offensive players.
Cheat code in hand, Zimmer called plays to screw them over.”
Or this:
“When the offense followed orders and stuck to a steady diet of runs and play-action and screens in practice, Zimmer asked them to run more dropback passes the next practice. They did. They felt Zimmer’s wrath. “What!?” one source remembers him shouting. “We’re a dropback f—— team now?”
Dunne’s piece also touches on Diggs as luck would have it. Saying:
Dunne surmises that most coaches would’ve bent over backwards to repair the relationship with Diggs, off or on the field. To find a way to listen and adapt. Dunne concludes on that note:
“It’s the exact opposite,” the one source recalls. “It’s ‘Do what you’re f—— told.’”
My main reason for writing this, besides enough clicks to buy a sandwich eventually, is to analyze why it did so we can avoid it in the future. Outside of Diggs (and Mackezie Alexander or Jayron Kearse), there haven’t been any angry defections from Zimmerland, so, grain of salt (I trust Dunne’s work, but you never know how much of this sour grapes).
But as 50 comments will say, we have Justin Jefferson now so everything worked out for everyone. Or, rather, they worked out great for the Vikings and temporarily worked out for Buffalo. As, when someone is praising you by saying things like the “emotions on his sleeve” and “don’t cross Diggs!” lines, it’s only a matter of time before our team crosses Diggs and he does an Instagram Live of him jogging in New England or some other passive aggressive nonsense.