Tuesday, the big news out of Buffalo was that Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs was not present for mandatory minicamp.
Head coach Sean McDermott admitted he was "concerned," which immediately struck a little bit of angst into Bills Mafia, nationwide.
Diggs earlier had agreed to a contract restructure, which would make it less likely that this is some kind of trade demand or holdout. As far as we knew, any contract stuff had been worked out.
Why was Stefon Diggs absent from Buffalo Bills minicamp?
#Bills WR Stefon Diggs, who is absent from mandatory minicamp today, is making $24.415 million in 2023, including a $22.745M signing bonus as part of a March restructure. A mountain of dead cap means his contract isn't really tradeable from Buffalo's end. An unusual situation.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) June 13, 2023
We recently put together a hypothetical situation where the Bills did indeed trade Diggs, but again, that's extremely unlikely because of his contract and the dead cap it would leave behind. So, just what exactly is going on?
Quarterback Josh Allen gave us some insight as to what the Bills and Diggs are dealing with, Tuesday after practice.
"I know, internally, we're working on some things, not football related. You know, Stef is my guy. I love him. He's a brother of mine. This does not work, what we're doing here, without him. We wish he was here today."
So, according to Allen, it's more of a non-football issue that Diggs is working through at the moment. If that's the case, then fans should feel a little better about the absence. At the same time, fans are certainly concerned for Diggs' well-being.
Whether it's a family-related situation or a mental health type of circumstance, all we can do is hope and pray that Diggs is going to be fine, in the end. The fact that he's got such a great brother in Allen, though, should certainly help his case with what he's going through.
"I've got his back no matter what. I've got no doubts that we will figure out what's going on," Allen said to the media.
Later in his media time, though, Allen did go back to more of a football conversation as it pertains to Diggs.
"I think that there are some things that could have gone better last year, that didn't," Allen also noted.
The above sentiment is interesting because it reverts back to the notion that this actually could be football-related. If it wasn't football related, why would Allen bring up "some things" that could have gone differently last season in reference to Diggs' absence?
It's puzzling, to say the least.