What WR Stefon Diggs brings to the Washington Commanders

The Washington Commanders have signed wide receiver Stefon Diggs to a one-year contract. The Commanders have been linked with big name receivers all offseason, failing to land the biggest names in free agency and seeing the top receiver in the draft taken before their pick. 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk had long been linked to Washington but he was too busy making videos for social media instead of doing what he needed to do in order for the 49ers to cut him and make him available. So the Commanders ended up with the 32-year-old Diggs, a Maryland native who has spoken all offseason about wanting to come home.

So what does Diggs bring to Washington? In a word; production. He’s had over 1000 receiving yards in seven of his last eight seasons. The only time he didn’t break 1000 yards during that eight year span was in 2024, where he tore his ACL after eight games, but even then he was on target to hit 1000 yards. Last year he bounced back from that ACL and had another 1000 yard season with the Patriots, becoming their top receiver on their way to the Super Bowl. But what makes him so productive and can he continue to be that productive at age 32? Let’s take a closer look.

One of the first things that stood out to me when watching Diggs film from last year wasn’t the route running or the catching ability. I’ll certainly get to those things in this post, but the thing that jumped out to me most was his ability to make himself available. Diggs consistently showed the awareness to know when his route was dead and how to adjust or go off-script to make himself available. It’s a veteran savviness that made Zach Ertz such a great target for Jayden Daniels the past two years. Here’s a great example of it.

On this play against the Ravens, the Patriots face a tough third and 15 situation. Diggs lines up in the slot to the left of a trips formation. The Patriots run what’s often known as a pylon sail concept, or cruise in the Gruden terminology. It’s basically a sail concept with the outside receiver running deep down the field to clear out the deep coverage, a tight end working to the flat to occupy the underneath coverage and the slot receiver running the sail route in between them. On a sail concept, that outside receiver typically runs a deep post, but on cruise/pylon sail, that outside receiver runs a deeper corner route.

As the slot receiver, Diggs is the primary option on this play. The outside receiver takes the outside cornerback deep down the field, vacating space behind him. The tight end works out to the flat and occupies the flat defender. In theory, that should create a void in the defense for Diggs to work into. However, the Ravens had a fun coverage rotation post-snap. The safety that was deep to the trips side steps up to play an underneath zone. As it’s third and 15 and he starts from deep, the safety doesn’t have to worry too much about getting up close to the line of scrimmage, he can hold his position and read the routes as they come to him.

That safety spots Diggs getting into the seam and then beginning to break outside on the sail route, so he adjusts his coverage to take that route away. For a lot of receivers, they would just continue to run the route, hoping maybe they could find a way to get behind the safety or possibly cut in front of them. But Diggs plays this smartly. He can see the safety has broken his coverage assignment to match Diggs’ route. The safety should be more inside, but he goes outside to match the route, leaving the inside open. So instead of running into coverage, Diggs simply breaks off his route and sits it down inside, making himself available. Quarterback Drake Maye felt some pressure in the pocket and stepped up to scramble, but was happy to see Diggs sitting his route down over the middle and finds him for a big first down conversion.

Diggs does this consistently on film. Sometimes it’s making small adjustments like sitting a route down in a hole in coverage, sometimes it’s going off-script when a play breaks down to make himself available.

This time, the Ravens show a heavy blitz look with seven defenders all up on the line of scrimmage. However, that blitz look is just a disguise to hide a simulated pressure. They’re only rushing four, but the fourth rusher is the slot corner lined up over Diggs. The Ravens hope that the line will slide to the right where their defenders all bail out into coverage, leaving the slot corner free to rush from the blindside and get a sack.

Diggs lines up in the slot to the left and runs a simple quick out route, getting to five yards beyond the line of scrimmage and breaking outside to the flat. With the slot corner blitzing and the rest of the defense up on the line of scrimmage, if Drake Maye read the blitz correctly, he would have had an easy completion to Diggs in the flat with a chance for some big yards after the catch. But he worked the wrong way, giving the defense time to sink back into their zones and recover.

This is where Diggs’ veteran savvy and instincts kick in. Most receivers would continue running out to the sideline or just sit down knowing they’re not getting the ball in this situation. But Diggs understands if Maye missed him breaking outside on time, he wasn’t going to come back to it later on, especially with a linebacker that started the play on the line of scrimmage and sprinting to get back into position working his way over to him. So Diggs doesn’t continue the route outside. Instead, he breaks it off and works against the momentum of the closing defender. He pivots the route back inside and makes himself available for the quarterback. After missing him the first time, Maye works his way back to Diggs and finds him over the middle for an easy dump off that Diggs turns into another first down.

As I mentioned, Diggs does this consistently and it makes him an extremely quarterback friendly target. He’s been around multiple teams and multiple quarterbacks and always managed to build up a rapport with them quickly, likely due to this ability. It means when things break down and the quarterback is in trouble, they typically look to him to bail them out of it.