One of the great Terps in the NFL has found a new landing spot heading into the 2024 season.
The Buffalo Bills are trading Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported. The Bills sent Diggs, a sixth-round pick in this year’s draft and a 2025 fifth-round pick to Houston in exchange for a 2025 second-round pick.
In 17 games this past season, Diggs caught 107 passes for 1,183 yards and eight touchdowns. He was named to his fourth Pro Bowl. Diggs had formed a popular and oftentimes lethal quarterback-wide receiver combination with Bills star quarterback Josh Allen. Now, he will team up with the Texans quarterback CJ Stroud – the reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and budding star.
Diggs, who will turn 31 on Nov. 30, enters his 10th season in the NFL. Diggs became Maryland’s highest-ranked recruit in history, according to the 247Sports database, when he committed to the university on Feb. 10, 2012. Despite playing with several different quarterbacks, he finished his three-year Terps career with 150 catches for 2,227 yards and 14 touchdowns in 28 games.
The Minnesota Vikings selected Diggs with the 146th overall pick in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft. He played five seasons in Minnesota, breaking national stardom with his 61-yard touchdown – a play now famously known as the Minneapolis Miracle – to hand Minnesota a 29-24 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round of the playoffs in his third season.
In March 2020, the Vikings traded Diggs and a seventh-round pick to the Bills for a first-, fifth- and sixth-round pick. Diggs immediately had a career season upon arriving in Buffalo, posting 127 catches for 1,535 yards – both league-leading marks – and eight touchdowns en route to First-team All-Pro honors. Diggs was also a Second-team All-Pro selection in 2022, hauling in 108 catches for 1,429 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Diggs was named a Pro Bowler in each of his four seasons in Buffalo, each of which ended with AFC East titles. Despite the regular-season success, the Bills only appeared in the AFC title game once (2020 season) and lost in the divisional round each of the past three seasons.
Diggs joins a promising receiving room in Houston with 25-year-old Nico Collins and second-year wideout Tank Dell. Former Cincinnati Bengals star running back Joe Mixon is also a new Texan. The Texans will host the Bills this season.
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — The Big 12 is exploring avenues to expand its reach geographically and on the media landscape in the immediate future, with plans to play football and basketball games in Mexico and upgrade its television presentations with behind-the-scenes access during games.
The conference plans to play select football and basketball games in Monterrey, Mexico and Mexico City, respectively, as early as 2025. The plans are beginning to “crystallize,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told 247Sports Wednesday, with football and basketball as the centerpiece.
“It’s a critically important market,” Yormark said. “It’s becoming an event capital when you think of professional sports — F1, NBA, Major League Baseball, the NFL. Geographically, it is certainly on the heels of our conference footprint with 22 million consumers.”
The conference is expected to make an announcement in the next “couple of weeks,” Yormark said. News of the conference’s discussions was first reported by the Houston Chronicle. Coaches and athletic directors were informed of the possibilities this week at the conference’s annual spring meetings conducted in conjunction with the Fiesta Bowl’s annual summit.
Coaches and administrators were told Wednesday change is imminent for the Big 12’s television product. ESPN and FOX representatives offered presentations on expanded coverage of games to athletic directors and football coaches during its spring meetings here this week. The plan was sparked by Yormark, who seeks unique content and expanded access to coaches and players for television broadcasts and social media. The networks’ presentation included proof-of-concept clips from professional leagues and pitches from ESPN and FOX on-air personaltieis, sources tell 247Sports. The behind-the-scenes concept includes in-game interviews with coaches, and pre- and post-game access inside locker rooms, according to Sports Illustrated. The conference is also exploring whether it can attach microphones to coaches and players during games to record audio to air later during the game, sources tell 247Sports.
The behind-the-scenes access is expected to begin as soon as this football season, sources tell 247Sports. “It’s not coming,” a Big 12 coach told 247Sports. “It’s now.”
“As we define our conference as one of innovation and access, obviously working with our broadcast partners is critically important,” Yormark told 247Sports. “So we had great presentations in front of our ADs and coaches to kind of see how far we want to go. We’re excited about it. It helps to define who we are as a conference, a brand, and, obviously, for the viewing experience. We want to bring our fans closer to what we do, and give them a peek under the hood. And all the other professional leagues are doing it. Not to say we’re antiquated, but it’s time for us to be a little bit more progressive, and we’d like to take a leadership position in that area.”
Football programs nationwide have begun offering in-house programming via behind-the-scenes access on their streaming platforms. Deion Sanders has offered an inside look at his rebuild of Colorado, where cameras follow his every move for a documentary series and daily content on social media. The Big 12’s in-game, behind-the-scenes access, however, will be the first of its kind on the college landscape.
Yormark was hired Aug. 1 as Big 12 commissioner following a long career in the sports and entertainment industry, including time as an executive overseeing Roc Nation and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. He quickly negotiated a critical $2.3 billion media rights deal last fall with ESPN and FOX through the 2030-31 season in the wake of lynchpins Oklahoma and Texas leaving the conference for the SEC. The Big 12 adds BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF as members this fall — and could potentially court Pac-12 universities if that conference cannot secure a lucrative media-rights deal on the market this summer.
Yormark has aggressively explored options to expand the Big 12’s cultural imprint, from hiring Shaquille O’Neal as a DJ at the Big 12’s basketball tournament to launching youth clinics with Big 12 coaches at historic Rucker Park in New York. The Big 12 has also scheduled a conference-wide pro day in Frisco, Texas for NFL Draft prospects starting in 2024.
