Trading Stefon Diggs would be idiotic and we’re all dumber for knowing this opinion exists

Hi kids.

I hate the off-season, for a couple reasons. For one, football is over, and that is a bummer. But most importantly, when you mix the off-season with the era of hot takes and let it simmer for more than 20 seconds, what you’re left with is a big crock pot full of stupid.

Like trading Stefon Diggs...really?

I mean, I can’t believe I need to go step by step as to why it isn’t going to happen, but here we are. Let’s start off with the defensive side of the ball to explain why this idea is dumber than thinking paying $350 for a piece of paper that says ‘Green Bay Packers stock’ makes you a freaking NFL owner.

The Vikings are going to have some hard choices to make on defense. They are about $10 million over the salary cap, and players that make up most of the core of the defense—Everson Griffen, Linval Joseph, Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, Mackensie Alexander, and Anthony Harris—are either free agents or have prohibitive cap numbers for 2020, and there’s a very good chance most of these guys will be elsewhere next season. So, just to get under the cap, the Vikings are going to have to more than likely gut the secondary, and barring multiple re-structures that kick the day of reckoning down the road, the defense is going to be significantly overhauled.

If that’s the case, rebuilding the defense will more than likely be the overriding priority for the Vikings this off-season, and as we go into next season, it’s probably going to have to fall on the offense to carry this team, at least in the early part of the year. The players they get to backfill the guys we’re going to lose will probably be younger and less experienced, so creating a completely unnecessary hole on offense is idiotic, regardless of what kind of Madden trade you think you can make.

Because no matter what kind of return you would get...it won’t help the Vikings in 2020. Would it help in 2021? Sure, maybe. 2022? Yeah, possibly. But Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman don’t care about 2021 or 2022.

Why? Because they will be hustling for their jobs in 2020. If the Vikings don’t go at least as far next year as they did this year, Spielman and Zimmer will more than likely be gone, and trading away one of the centerpieces of your offense makes the Vikings worse in 2020, not better, no matter what you get in return.

And if they are gone after 2020, they could give two hoots in Hell about how many draft picks they have coming in 2021 and beyond. They are living in the present, and are doing whatever they can to win now. And as much as you want to sit here and condemn them for not thinking about the franchise long term, you’d be doing the same damn thing.

Why does trading Diggs make the Vikings worse? Well, for one, you’re trading away the only legitimate deep threat on the roster, and a guy that had 1130 yards receiving and a 17.9 yards per catch average. You can’t replace that, especially when you look at the wide receivers who will be on the roster when the new league year begins:

Diggs

Adam Thielen

Chad Beebe

Olabisi Johnson

Alexander Hamilton Aaron Burr sir Hollins

And excuse me but who the hell is Bralon Addison?

Other than Thielen JUST LOOK AT THAT TALENT THAT JUMPS OUT AT YOU MY GOD JUST PLUG IN ADDISON AND LET’S PLAY FOOTBALL! SUPER BOWL HOMEBOY!!!!

Trading Diggs with this depth behind Thielen neuters Thielen, Rudolph, Irv Smith, Jr., and the rest of the Vikings passing game before they even take the field.

RAWR RAWR RAWR BUT DIGGS IS A MALCONTENT AND A CANCER AND POISON AND A DIVA AND LITERALLY THE WORST PERSON EVER AND NEEDS TO GO RAWR RAWR RAWR!

Yeah, whatever. So was Adrian Peterson in the 2014-15 off-season, when both Peterson and his agent demanded he be traded. And my God were most folks bending their morals into a freaking Simone Biles floor routine to justify keeping Peterson after all the garbage that went down. All Diggs does is tweet, not beat his kid to the point he’s criminally charged, but Diggs needs to go, while a good chunk of you were cool with keeping Peterson?

Huh, cool story.

Oh, what did Mike Zimmer do when Peterson wanted to be traded? He famously said Peterson would either play for the Vikings, or he wouldn’t play. Because he knew Peterson was a critical part of the Vikings offense, and from a football perspective, trading him would be stupid.

Peterson played, and led the NFL in rushing in 2015.

So no, the Vikings aren’t trading Stefon Diggs.

Man, it’s stuff like this that makes me almost yearn for mock drafts.

Almost.