Stefon Diggs knows the picture.
After the Buffalo Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 38-24, in the AFC championship game in January, he stayed to watch the Chiefs celebrate, long after all other Bills had fled the field. His hands are on his hips, and he’s by himself, watching the confetti fall. Some players might hold on to an image like that as motivation. Diggs didn’t feel the need.
“There’s definitely an image in my head,” he said the first day of training camp. “I was there. I don’t need too much of a picture of it to relive it.”
It was living it in that moment that mattered most to the seventh-year wide receiver. He wanted to internalize it, and let that drive him in the offseason. But Diggs also thinks that to really experience the highs of the NFL, he has to soak in the lows. He says he’s always been that way. It makes the former more meaningful.
“If things don’t go your way, you still have to deal with them,” he said Wednesday. “I didn’t want to run from defeat. I’ve lost before, and I’m gonna still look at it in the same way. I’m gonna keep my chin up, and I’m gonna keep my head high.
“So for me, I just felt you be still, you be in it. You embrace the moment, take it for what it is, and move forward. For me, I took it as a moment as you came up short, get back in the lab, and you’ve gotta get back to the grind.”
It’s not that he’s constantly thinking about that picture. The wide receiver leans on other ways to stay motivated than just returning to that moment in January over and over again.
“That’s kinda like some movie stuff,” he said in July. “That’s not me.”
So what does it mean to him to return to that spot 10 months later?
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve played there before. I’ve lost there before. When I was in Minnesota, we lost to them, actually on the last drive of the game. So I’ve lost there before. I don’t look at it as going back to do X, Y, Z – I’m trying to get a win.”
Diggs is echoing what everyone on the team is saying this week: While the storyline of a rematch with Kansas City hovers around them, the Bills themselves are intent on treating it like it’s just the next game. Coach Sean McDermott shared that message with the team Wednesday morning. There’s some nuance: Diggs points out that anyone with a competitive nature would hate to lose there, but it’s a new season, and it’s the next game.
Even so, there’s still plenty of other reasons this game is particularly intriguing.
Quarterback Josh Allen said Arrowhead Stadium is perhaps the most hostile road environment he’s played in. It can present some challenges in communication, but some players really feed off the noise. Allen can think of one teammate in particular who embraces it.
“Probably Stef. He’s got a lot of fire in him,” Allen said. “Probably all of the receivers, I think. Once they make a play and try to quiet the crowd down, that’s always a good feeling.”
Diggs agrees. He doesn’t think there’s a way to fully describe being immersed in all that stadium noise, but after limited capacity his last visit, he welcomes the sensory overload.
“I’m all about the hostile environments. I’m pretty chill right now, but when it’s time to go, I love everything about it. I love not being able to hear,” he said. “ ... It’s kind of weird to say, but it’s so loud that it’s quiet. You don’t got nothing but your thoughts and really just the man in front of you. It’s a good feeling though.”
Four games into the season, Diggs has 305 yards and 26 catches on 41 targets. He's hoping to have some plays that quiet, even if just momentarily, the Kansas City crowd, but he's also trying to help prepare younger teammates for that environment. To do so, he's thinking more and more about his body language.
Diggs is the first to admit that he naturally shows his emotions. He still wants to fully feel both the good and the bad, but he's cognizant of how he shows that.
“I’m just in a different role now, where I am a little older, and people are looking at me to be like, “All right, well what is he doing?” And I can’t never really hang my head or ever put myself in a bad position, whereas my teammates are looking at me like, ‘Damn, we’re down bad,’ or no positive energy,” Diggs said. “So for me, I just be calm in the chaos, and you’ve got to love every piece of it.”
He says that willingness to grapple with all feelings a game brings comes from his love of the craft itself. It also ties to all the reasons outside that single picture that keep him motivated. Diggs doesn't think he can verbally pass that to younger players; They have to feel every ounce of it, too, starting with the noise.
"You can’t prepare out here in practice for moments like that," he said. "That comes from moments where I’m one-on-one by myself or where I’m training in the offseason. Or when I have those moments where I’m super tired, and I think to myself, ‘These are the moments that you really work for.’
"Because I can just go back to that. I always revert to the work that I’ve put in and the time that I’ve put in. So I’m never really nervous, and I never really get into my own head. It’s more so about the preparation of it and just being like, ‘You worked for it. Whatchu thinking about? Go hoop.’ "
