Buffalo Bills’ Beane defends decision to trade Stefon Diggs

It’s been almost two months since the Buffalo Bills traded Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans, and yet the divorce between Buffalo and Diggs continues to be a topic of conversation in NFL circles.

This topic came up in a conversation with Bills general manager Brandon Beane, who recently appeared on the Athletic Football Show as a guest.

Beane spoke with host Robert Mays about a number of topics, including Buffalo’s goals for the upcoming season and beyond, the play of superstar QB Josh Allen, and more.

Mays also asked about the Diggs trade, specifically the motivating factors behind making the deal. Here’s what Beane said about the trade, as transcribed in a CBS Sports article:

“For a player of his caliber, you weigh a lot of things. But ultimately, we just talked about the (salary) cap. … I don’t need to go through all the reasons why we decided to go ahead and do this. “I would say from a cap perspective, we decided to go ahead and eat it now. ” -Beane via The Athletic

He continued:

“We think we can compete and do what we need to do by eating it now. Because if we didn’t, if we tried to find a way to divide it too many different ways, it’s like this albatross was hanging on your neck all year… What’s ’25 like? -Beane via The Athletic

So, Beane and the team’s public position is that this decision was made for salary cap relief purposes, which is factually accurate. That said, when he says I don’t need to go through all the reasons why we decided to go ahead and do thisThis suggests to me that there is more to this story than dollars and cents.

Beane, however, won’t reveal this information anytime soon, as he would probably prefer to keep his job.

Check out the full conversation between Mays and Beane here:

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