Buffalo Bills WR Stefon Diggs has been an elite fantasy football WR1 ever since joining the team. But over the second half of last season, he was completely unstartable. Can Diggs return to greatness in 2024? Or should Best Ball drafters be avoiding the aging wide receiver?
Stefon Diggs’ 2024 Fantasy Outlook
Strap in, folks. It’s time to take a journey on the wild ride that was rostering Diggs in the 2023 season.
After joining the Bills in 2020, Diggs immediately posted the best season of his career, averaging 20.5 fantasy points per game. He established himself as a trustworthy WR1, cementing himself as a perennial first-round pick in fantasy leagues.
Diggs followed up his 2020 season with 16.8 and 18.9 fantasy points per game. Despite his consistent strong production, Diggs wasn’t being valued as highly as he should’ve been entering the 2023 season. As a result, I was targeting Diggs everywhere.
#Bills WR Stefon Diggs has scored 7️⃣ TDs since Week 18 of the 2022 season — tied for most among #NFL WRs.
Will Diggs find the endzone tonight on #TNF? 👀#BillsMafia
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365)
For nine weeks, things were going great. Diggs was doing typical Diggs things. He was on pace for the best season of his career, averaging 21.7 fantasy points per game. Nothing appeared to be amiss.
From Week 10 onward, it was like Diggs got Space Jam’d and the MonStars stole his talent. He averaged 9.8 fantasy points per game for the remainder of the season. Diggs belonged nowhere near fantasy lineups.
So, what happened? Can we expect Diggs to return to his regularly scheduled programming? Or should we be genuinely concerned this is the beginning of the end for Diggs, who is now over 30 years old?
Should You Draft Diggs in 2024 Best Ball Leagues?
There is a very obvious change that occurred in the Bills’ offense over the second half of the season that can’t be overlooked. From Weeks 1-9, the Bills had a 59% neutral game script pass rate. From Week 10 onward, their neutral game script pass rate was a paltry 47%, second-lowest in the league.
While this could be used as an excuse, it poses two crucial questions. First, with the Bills so successful in winning games over the second half of the season, why would they go back to their passing ways this year? Second, if the offense is better off not targeting Diggs, is that not an indictment on Diggs?
We can’t know for sure what the answer is. But we can look to Diggs’ 2023 season as a whole to try and find out. Overall, it’s not great.
After averaging 2.87 yards per route run in 2022, third in the league, that number fell to 2.03, 31st in the league. His 7.4 yards per target was a whopping two-yard decline from the previous year, taking him from 17th to 62nd. Perhaps there was a reason the Bills made it a point to target Khalil Shakir ahead of Diggs.
From Week 10 onward, Shakir totaled 387 receiving yards. Diggs had just 349. There’s really no way to spin this as a positive for Diggs.
To fantasy managers’ credit, Diggs is not being drafted like he’s still this alpha WR1. However, he’s still going inside the top 15.
KEEP READING: Best Ball Fantasy WR Rankings 2024
After evaluating all of the evidence, I’ve rendered a verdict. As always, I could be wrong. But I believe the answer is that it’s over for Diggs. For most receivers, the decline happens between seasons. For Diggs, it appeared to happen during the season. I am not at all confident we see a rebound.
Currently, there isn’t a single player with a larger disparity in my rank and their ADP. As a result, I will not be drafting Diggs in any fantasy leagues this season.
