Former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs recently commented on how he agrees that he wasn’t the best teammate before winding up with the Buffalo Bills.
Before eventually getting traded to the Buffalo Bills during the 2020 offseason, Stefon Diggs made it pretty clear that he no longer wanted to play for the Minnesota Vikings after the 2019 campaign.
Diggs grew increasingly frustrated with the Vikings for multiple reasons before and during the 2019 season. It ultimately led to his infamous press conference after he returned to the team from skipping a mandatory practice in which he proclaimed “there’s truth to all rumors,” when asked about the rumors of him wanting Minnesota to trade him to another team.
Diggs is currently preparing for his second season with the Bills, and most recently, he was named a team captain for the first time in his NFL career.
Buffalo Bills WR Stefon Diggs says it was fair to call him a bad teammate when he was with the Minnesota Vikings
When speaking with the local Buffalo media recently, Diggs reflected on his exit from the Vikings, how he viewed his opportunity with the Bills, and what becoming a captain in Buffalo says about who he is as a teammate today.
"“[Up until] me wanting to leave and wanting to go to another place, I was a great teammate. It wasn’t until I wanted to do something else is when I became a bad teammate. It’s all good until it’s not good. Coming [to Buffalo], I had a fresh start. It was fair for people to make their assumptions or their assessment from the outside looking in. That’s fair. I just look at it as when I get there, I’ll show them who I am, and we’ll go from there.As far as my new chapter with my new team, things are going pretty good [and I’m] trying to keep it that way.”"
The way he left Minnesota obviously wasn’t the greatest. But it’s clear that Diggs has taken some major steps in his maturity since joining the Bills.
He’s a smart guy, so he knew how some people might have viewed him as a bad teammate based on how things ended with the Vikings. But he took advantage of getting a new start in Buffalo and he’s certainly been making the most of it.
Would it have been great if Diggs and Minnesota could have settled their differences and he not get traded to the Bills? Yes, of course. But that’s just how things work out sometimes, and if Diggs was still with the Vikings, there would be no Justin Jefferson in Minnesota.
Neither the Vikings nor the Bills have much to complain about when it comes to what has happened since Diggs was traded to the AFC East.