Source: Patriots signing 4-time Pro Bowl WR Stefon Diggs to free-agent deal

Andrew Callahan and Doug Kyed, Boston Herald on Mar 25, 2025

Published in Football

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BOSTON — There’s a new top target in New England.

The Patriots are signing four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs to a free-agent contract, a source confirmed to the Boston Herald.

It’s a three-year deal worth up to $69 million with $26 million guaranteed, ESPN first reported.

Diggs instantly becomes the team’s best receiver and bolsters one of its weakest position groups. He traveled to Foxboro last Wednesday night, per a source, and left Thursday after a dinner with team brass and visit to the facility.

A recent ACL tear depressed Diggs’ market this offseason, though he is expected to make a midseason return in 2025. Diggs is reportedly ahead of schedule and running at full speed. He tore his ACL last October, which puts him on a similar timeline to Patriots receiver Kendrick Bourne, who returned to game action last season almost a year to the day of his own tear in Oct. 2023.

Prior to tearing his ACL, Diggs was tracking for his seventh straight 1,000-yard season during his first and only year with the Texans. He finished with 47 catches for 496 yards and three touchdowns over eight games. Houston acquired him last spring in a pick-swap trade with the Bills.

In Buffalo, Diggs made the Pro Bowl every year from 2020-23 and earned an All-Pro nod in 2020. He helped Josh Allen develop into one of the game’s best quarterbacks, and while their relationship reportedly soured toward the end of his tenure, the hope is Diggs will provide a go-to target for Patriots quarterback Drake Maye late in Maye’s second season.

Diggs, 31, should also provide a veteran presence in a receivers room that lacked it last year, relying on second-year wideouts DeMario Douglas and Kayshon Boutte, while rookie draft picks Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker struggled to see the field. His addition immediately lessens the need for the Patriots to add a receiver in next month’s draft, when the team hoped to select the best player available. That player may still be Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter, a projected top-5 pick.

Diggs is among the game’s best route-runners who annually tormented the Patriots during his years with the Bills. He continued to torch the Pats last October, catching six passes for 77 yards and a touchdown in a blowout Texans win. Diggs made three of those receptions, including his touchdown grab, at the expense of No. 1 cornerback Christian Gonzalez.

Over his career, Diggs has averaged more than six catches for 78 yards and almost a touchdown per game against the Patriots.

Diggs arrived in Buffalo via a 2020 offseason trade with the Vikings, who selected him in the fifth round of the 2015 draft out of Maryland. A explosive quick-twitch athlete, Diggs made 52 grabs for 720 yards and four touchdowns as a rookie, then clinched his first 1,000-yard season in 2018. The following year, he set new career highs with 1,130 receiving yards and a 17.9 yards per reception average, showing off his long speed for a Minnesota team that reached the NFC championship game.

Diggs now joins Douglas, Boutte, Polk, Baker, Kendrick Bourne, fellow free-agent addition Mack Hollins, John Jiles and JaQuae Jackson in the team’s receivers room.

Last season, Diggs received direct coaching from Texans assistant Ben McDaniels, the brother of Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who may have provided some intel on his time in Houston.

Prior to signing Diggs, the Patriots had lukewarm interest in acquiring ex-Seahawks receiver D.K. Metcalf, who also had reputed concerns about football character. Metcalf was eventually traded to the Steelers. Buccaneers receiver Chris Godwin also turned the Pats down in free agency, declining a far richer offer to return to Tampa Bay on a three-year, $66 million deal.

Diggs’ contract is the richest in franchise history for a wide receiver.