Bills GM bluntly explains why the Stefon Diggs traded needed to happen

The Buffalo Bills made the controversial decision to trade Stefon Diggs this offseason, shipping him off to Houston. It's no secret that Diggs was a drama queen during his time in Buffalo so the move wasn't entirely shocking.

That being said, by trading Diggs, the Bills are still on the hook for more than $31 million. Some might have wondered why the team didn't wait to trade him until after June 1st when the money they had to eat wouldn't have been nearly as much.

Well, GM Brandon Beane talked about that and he said the reason was that the Bills wanted to get the contract off their books once and for all.

""I mean, listen, there's a lot of things I think you weigh," Beane said. "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 that. I would say, from a cap standpoint, we decided just to go ahead and eat it out now. 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 come up with some way to split it up too many different ways, it's just like that albatross hanging on your neck all year. ... What's '25 look like? What's '26?""

- From Cody Benjamin's article

Brandon Beane wanted Stefon Digg's contract off the books

Bills fans knew that the Diggs era was going to end at some point and this offseason felt like the right time to do so. Buffalo needed to free up some cap space, which is why they parted ways with so many key players, but it still doesn't change the fact that the Bills could have used Diggs' skills on the offensive side of the ball and the team didn't get much in return for trading him.

Beane is paid to make these decisions and we'll see if the choice to trade Diggs and get a start on getting out of that contract was the correct one down the road.