Until or unless the Las Vegas Raiders' young wide receiver corps starts to show more promise or increase its production, the buzz about the Silver and Black needing to add a veteran wide receiver won't stop. And with the season still months away, expect much more of this noise from the media.
But what these analysts fail to fully grasp is that this isn't the Raiders of the past; they're not trying to salvage this season and go all-in with a roster that isn't ready to compete. Las Vegas is building for the future, as they've shown all offseason, so youth and development are the clear priorities.
Could the wide receiver room use a true 'X' receiver or a bona fide No.1 option? Sure. That said, the Raiders don't even fully know what they currently have in that room, so the 2026 NFL season should be used to figure that out. Adding a veteran wideout into the mix would sully that experiment.
And Las Vegas certainly doesn't have any business adding someone like Stefon Diggs, who checks all of the wrong boxes for the Silver and Black.
ESPN urges Las Vegas Raiders to sign Stefon Diggs, who would be an unmitigated disaster
Diggs, at age 32, does not fit the Raiders' current timeline. By the time Klint Kubiak and Co. have this thing rolling, the veteran will be past his prime. Plus, Diggs, who played in the Super Bowl last year, doesn't likely want to take part in a rebuild; he wants to ring chase. He's not doing that in Las Vegas.
Still, though, ESPN's Mina Kimes and Bill Barnwell discussed why Diggs is still at or near the top of his game on Friday's edition of NFL Live. In fairness to them, Diggs could certainly still help several teams and push them over the hump in 2026. I just don't think that team should or will be the Raiders.
"Stefon Diggs would honestly help most NFL teams. Let's just start there," Kimes said. "I like to call him 'Professional wide receiver,' because that's what he does. He just runs precise routes. He is going to be where you need him to be, and he's going to catch the football on short passes. Last year, he had an 89% catch rate, which is the best of any receiver in the NFL. He was third in yards per route run, by the way, behind only Puka Nacua and Christian McCaffrey. So, every team makes sense.
"I would throw out the Raiders, though, as a team that really should consider making this play," Kimes added. "Right now, that receiving group is pretty thin, and when the young quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, eventually starts, it would really help him to have a receiver like Stefon Diggs, who he can rely on in those situations."
Yes, from a pure Xs and Os standpoint, it may behoove Mendoza and the Raiders to have a player of Diggs' caliber. After all, he was the No. 1 target for the AFC champion New England Patriots last season, so it is difficult to justify that he wouldn't be a net-positive on the field in Las Vegas.
That said, there is a reason the Patriots parted ways with him, and he is still unsigned deep into the offseason: Diggs has a bad locker room reputation and is always embroiled in off-the-field issues or controversies, which the Raiders need to steer entirely clear of. He's also too expensive for his age.
For those reasons, he checks all the wrong boxes for the Silver and Black, even if Barnwell outlined how he could be effective in Kubiak's offense or a benefit to Mendoza.
"The Raiders are such a good fit for Stefon Diggs," Barnwell began. "Think about that offense Klint Kubak was running last year in Seattle: Heavy boot action, a lot of crossers coming across the middle of the field. But what did our friend Kevin Clark just say? Best wide receiver in football on crossing routes last year was Stefon Diggs. He was second in the NFL in receiver score ESPN metric last year, which measures how good you are at getting open, catching the ball, and creating after the catch. He didn't play a lot of snaps. Only played about half of the snaps last year for the Patriots. So, if Diggs can be in that situational role, they're going to be, probably, a pretty heavy 12-personnel team in Las Vegas. So you don't need him to play every single snap, but on passing downs in key situations like he was for Drake Maye last year, I think Stefon Diggs could be a really valuable wide receiver for Mendoza in his first season with the Raiders. He was for Drake Maye."
Again, Diggs still has some juice on the field. But he doesn't seemingly fit the young-and-hungry culture that Kubiak and John Spytek are building in Las Vegas, and Diggs is undoubtedly a distraction that the Raiders don't need when they're trying to build a winning franchise.
Spytek and the front office need to see what they have in their young wide receiver group before making any more big decisions at the position. And because this is the early stages of a rebuild, there is always next year to add that high-end pass catcher to the receiver room.
As it stands now, though, Diggs doesn't make any sense for the Raiders because they aren't in a win-now window. It doesn't make any sense for Diggs, either, even if several credible and notable ESPN analysts are pushing for it from a schematic standpoint. There's more to football than that!
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