Stefon Diggs was released by the New England Patriots this offseason, a move the team categorized under free agency. One source, one line, no ambiguity about the transaction itself.
The argument started afterward. Patriots fans went after the front office over the decision once Drake Maye struggled against Seattle, and that criticism is circulating as rumor rather than anything the organization has acknowledged. The football case is thinner than the outrage.
Maye's line against the Seahawks: 23-of-33 for 178 yards, 5.4 yards per attempt, one touchdown, three interceptions, three sacks and a 54.9 passer rating. He completed 69.7 percent of his throws and still averaged under six yards a pop. That isn't a missing-receiver problem. That's a quarterback-and-protection problem, and no wideout on the market fixes three picks.
Where the Diggs absence does show up is the target distribution. Mack Hollins led New England with 51 yards on four catches. DeMario Douglas caught five passes for 20 yards, a 4.0 average. Romeo Doubs drew three targets and caught none. The longest completion of the day went 19 yards. Nobody stressed a defense vertically, and the only consistently efficient yardage came on Maye's scrambles: seven carries, 47 yards, 6.7 per attempt.
So the release is one decision, defensible on its own. Failing to backfill Diggs with a receiver who can win outside is a separate decision, and New England hasn't answered it. Rhamondre Stevenson's 18 carries for 51 yards, 2.8 a pop, is what a compressed field looks like.
My read: blaming the Diggs release for a three-interception afternoon is reading causation into a box score that doesn't support it, and the fan criticism as framed is mostly noise. But I'll make a call. If the Patriots reach midseason with this same target tree, they'll have added a veteran receiver before the deadline, and the criticism will stop looking like a tantrum and start looking like a scouting report.
