Baldinger: Texans basically stole Stefon Diggs from Bills

The Stefon Diggs saga in Buffalo came to an end on Wednesday morning with the Bills trading the star receiver to the Houston Texans. The Bills received a 2025 second-round pick in exchange for Diggs, a 2024 sixth-round pick, and a 2025 fifth-round pick.

NFL Insider Brian Baldinger of the Audacy original podcast “In The Huddle” gave his thoughts on the trade and doesn’t understand why the Bills would trade Diggs for such a small return.

“I didn’t really understand it to be honest with you because Stefon Diggs has been a big part of their success,” Baldinger said. “He’s caught a lot of touchdown passes, been the number one receiver by a mile, the most-targeted receiver in the NFL over the last four years.”

Baldinger acknowledged that the Bills found success last season after elevating Joe Brady and going with a more run-first offense. That doesn’t mean the trade makes sense, though.

“I get the change. You’ve still got to throw it on third down. You still got to score in the red zone. You still have to throw it,” he said. “So when you find out that they’re taking a $31 million hit by trading Stefon Diggs, and next year if they kept him for a year they don’t have any cap hit. Now you might not get much for him then, but you’re getting a second-round pick next year.”

It’s rare to see a wide receiver traded for a first-round pick in today’s NFL but this wasn’t a deal that the Bills necessarily had to make.

“I thought Houston basically stole Stefon Diggs. They got better and Buffalo got worse,” Baldinger continued. “They said they ran it by Josh Allen; I can’t believe he approved of it.

“You can say ‘OK, there’s some antics on the sideline.’ That’s true, but a lot of teams have dealt with that. You deal with it in-house. You deal with it like they have. He’s still productive. He still caught 107 passes last year. And you can say ‘OK, he dropped one against Kansas City.’ They all drop ‘em. Sometimes it’s in big moments. Everybody drops ‘em. I didn’t really understand this from Buffalo's standpoint.”

The Bills are now left with Curtis Samuel as their top wide receiver while the Texans added another weapon to help out CJ Stroud in the AFC South.