No, the Vikings aren’t going to trade Stefon Diggs to Washington

These are the sorts of things that happen when I decide to leave the internet for a few hours, I guess.

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, this was posted to Instagram by Alabama defensive back Trevon Diggs, the younger brother of Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs.

Since we are well into the “silly season” in the NFL, this immediately caused social media to do what the kids might call “blow up” with speculation that the receiving half of the Minneapolis Miracle was on the trading block. Diggs the Younger later deleted the Instagram post, but that didn’t stop social media from continuing to speculate.

As you’d expect, eventually these rumors were emphatically denied.

Ignore how nonsensical this move would be on its face. Diggs is a young receiver entering his prime and is in the first year of the big contract extension he signed this past offseason. With the Vikings as strapped for salary cap space as they are at the present time, a trade of Diggs would do just about nothing to help that. Why?

Because, according to the good folks from Over the Cap, if the Vikings were to trade Diggs away, they would have to eat a $12 million dead money cap hit, and they wouldn’t even save half a million dollars against the salary cap ($468,750 to be precise).

I understand that Diggs grew up in Maryland, and that there’s a pretty solid chance that he and his brothers probably grew up cheering for the Washington Redskins on Sundays. However, given that the logistics of the salary cap implications simply wouldn’t do Minnesota any favors. . .not to mention the fact that Stefon Diggs is really, really good and the Vikings likely wouldn’t get anywhere near sufficient value for him. . .such a dream for Trevon and the rest of the Diggs family is likely a long, long way from ever happening. It certainly isn’t going to be happening this offseason.