How the Bills can replace WR Stefon Diggs 'in the aggregate'

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In the 2011 Brad Pitt-led film Moneyball, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane has a dilemma: after making the ALDS, the A’s have several key players set to hit free agency and an owner who is unwilling to spend the money to keep them. In a later scene, Beane is meeting with his scouts to solve the team's problem, and he suggests that there is simply no first baseman better than impending free agent Giambi, and even there they couldn’t afford him. Instead, they need to recreate him “in the aggregate."

It’s a scene that has become notorious to sports fans looking to create some hope after their favorite team has a key departure in free agency or via trade. It's a strategy that the Buffalo Bills appear to be employing in the 2024 season after general manager Brandon Beane (of no relation to the aforementioned Billy) made the tough decision to trade Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans in the spring. 

That decision meant that the Bills had to find a way to replace Diggs’ immense production, but they couldn’t afford a 1:1 replacement given their salary cap situation. Given their 11-6 record last season, the team also wasn't in the position to take a bona fide No. 1 wide receiver in the 2024 NFL Draft. The constraints prompted the Bills’ Beane to take a note from the A’s Beane and decide to recreate that production in the aggregate.

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But what does that mean? What does that look like? How will Allen be successful without his favorite target?

All great questions, and I am so glad you asked them.

What does it mean to “Recreate in the aggregate?"

Essentially, what the Bills are now looking for are multiple players to fill the gap that Diggs left behind as opposed to a single player to replace all of his production. Diggs’ departure means the Bills will have to replace his 160 targets, 107 catches, 1,183 yards, and eight touchdowns in the upcoming season. If you’re unsure if that’s a lot, it is.

The Bills are going to be looking to the likes of Dalton Kincaid, Curtis Samuel, Khalil Shakir, and second-round pick Keon Coleman to replace those losses. This is all the basic numbers side of it, but there’s more than just the raw numbers that are important to the Diggs replacement. The fact of the matter is that despite his production falling off later in the season, Diggs still commands a lot of respect from opposing defensive gameplans. Joe Brady, the Bills’ interim offensive coordinator in 2023, understood that and used him as a way to create more space for other players to operate. As such, Diggs’ production sank. Now that Diggs is gone, however, there’s no single pass catcher on the Bills’ offense that commands that level of respect and attention… at the moment.

What does it look like to “Recreate in the aggregate?"

On the one hand, the Bills have actually been preparing for Diggs’ departure since the moment they drafted Dalton Kincaid in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft.Kincaid was seen as a big receiving threat coming out of the University of Utah, and in his first year lived up to that hype, catching 73 passes for 673 yards and a pair of scores. Those numbers are all expected to increase this year, and with good reason; Kincaid is a smooth athlete with great hands who can make a lot happen after the catch when he’s given space.

Another player who can create after the catch is the Bills’ biggest free-agent addition, Curtis Samuel. The 27-year-old had the best season of his career (97 targets, 77 catches, 851 yards, three touchdowns, along with 200 rushing yards on 41 attempts) with Brady as his offensive coordinator with the Carolina Panthers in 2020, and now that they’ve been reunited with a quarterback as special as Josh Allen, one can assume a statistical jump from Samuel, who is coming off an underwhelming three-year stint with the Washington Commanders.

Khalil Shakir, a 2022 fifth-round pick, enjoyed a nice uptick in all statistical categories in 2023. Shakir earned more opportunities as the season progressed and took advantage of them when his name was called. One would imagine that in 2024, in a wide receiver room that doesn’t have a clear, strong, presence, Shakir will see another uptick in his production. 

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There are two X factors to this particular equation that I want to highlight. The first is obvious, and it’s Keon Coleman. There are a lot of good vibes surrounding the rookie from Florida State, whose personality has garnered the attention of fans in and out of Buffalo. If football were played on vibes alone, Coleman would be slated as a perennial All-Pro. Since that’s not how football works, there are still questions about the talented Coleman. Despite his having a productive final season at Florida State, there are many questions about Coleman’s ability to separate and his overall rawness as a route runner.

Historically speaking under the Beane/Sean McDermott regime, these are the types of players that they like to take early on in the draft; talented balls of clay that they can mold and coach up to be better players. Josh Allen, Tremaine Edmunds, Greg Rousseau, and Kaiir Elam are all examples of their philosophy and their emphasis on talent over day-one readiness. Unfortunately for both Coleman and the Bills, they need him to be ready on day one. What will that turn into? What will a successful Coleman rookie campaign look like? It’s tough to say, but Bills fans should likely keep their expectations low for Coleman, not just because of his overall rawness in a vacuum, but also because this offensive identity will likely focus on running the ball, and finding more ready-made guys like Kincaid and Samuel to win, rather than trying to ease in the rookie Coleman. 

Speaking of ready-made guys, let’s talk about X factor number two. You may have forgotten him in the shuffle, but don’t worry, Dawson Knox is still here. It wasn’t that long ago when Knox was a legitimately important receiving threat for this Buffalo offense. Injuries and a shift in his role under previous offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey were the primary reasons for the downshift in Knox’s production. However, if the Bills decide to lean more into 12 personnel under Brady, they may find success having both Knox and Kincaid on the field, and Knox may surprise many by having a bounce-back year after having the lowest statistical output of his entire career in 2023. 

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How does Josh Allen find success without his favorite target?

To be perfectly frank, we already started to see what life without Diggs would be like when Brady took over play-calling duties. As mentioned before, Diggs didn’t have the same level of production in the second half of the season once Brady became the play-caller, and while other strategic advantages are had by having Diggs on the field, a decoy only matters so much if the production isn't there. Now, the Bills have to be a true spread offense, finding different ways to hit multiple targets across the field rather than focusing primarily on a single target and hoping that opens up other guys throughout the game. It takes commitment to make a plan like this work, and it also takes the other players being genuinely good in order to replace a great talent. That being said, the Bills have plenty of talent in both the wide receiver and tight end rooms, it’s just a matter of figuring out what the ceiling on this group of players actually is. 

Beyond that, the Bills had a clear shift in offensive identity from run/pass ratio once Brady took over. He committed to running the football far more than Dorsey did, and as such, if that is projected onto a full season, one could come to a reasonable conclusion that some of the targets left behind by the Diggs trade simply won’t be there in 2024 because of a re-focus on the run game. How many targets? It’s tough to say, and it may be a small margin at the end of the day. Regardless, it’s another piece of the puzzle that gets factored into this. 

At the end of the day, we’ve seen teams win with big-name receivers. We’ve seen teams win without marquee wideouts, as well. You can see the Green Bay Packers taking this approach after they offloaded Davante Adams in 2022. The 2022 and 2023 Kansas City Chiefs are the perfect example of a team that gave away their best receiver and still managed to win back-to-back Super Bowls. They did so by spreading the ball out more, running the football better, and in 2023, playing elite-level defense. The Bills are certainly more than capable of doing those things, but without Diggs, it will no longer be a choice, it will be a necessity. 

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