The Bills’ receiver room was set to change during the early part of free agency as Gabe Davis left for the open market. Following this, Buffalo made a big trade sending Stefon Diggs to the Texans. 
Originally planning to keep Diggs for another season, the Bills saw the opportunity to move on when the Texans offered a 2025 second-round pick. This resulted in Buffalo taking on a dead money charge of over $31MM.
Buffalo could have spread this charge over multiple seasons but opted for an upfront approach to avoid limiting future spending power. General manager Brandon Beane confirmed this strategy, emphasizing the importance of dealing with the cap issue immediately.
“A player of his caliber, you weigh a lot of things in those situations,” Beane said during an interview on The Athletic Football Show. “But ultimately, we just talked about the 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 now. We think we can compete and do what we need to do by eating it now. And not next year.
“Because if we didn’t, if we tried to come up with some way to split it up too many different ways, then now it’s just like that albatross hanging on your neck all year. You look at your cap and you’re going, ‘Look how much money we still have dead.’”
This offseason, the Bills have brought in new receivers like Curtis Samuel, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Mack Hollins, and Chase Claypool. They also added Keon Coleman after trading out of the first round, a move supported by quarterback Josh Allen. These additions, along with returning player Khalil Shakir, are expected to fill the void left by Diggs and Davis.
With Houston adjusting Diggs’ contract for the post-2024 years, he is now set for free agency next offseason. His performance with the Texans will be closely watched, along with the financial implications for the Bills.
