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EspañolThe Patriots signed Stefon Diggs to a three-year, $69 million deal last March. He caught 85 passes for a team-leading 1,013 yards and four touchdowns.
It was a good season, but was it good enough for the Patriots to keep him for Year 2 of the deal?
Diggs, 32, has a $6 million roster bonus that becomes guaranteed on March 13. He has a $20.6 million base salary and is scheduled to count $26.5 million against the cap.
Mike Vrabel cited Diggs' leadership when asked about Diggs' future with the team.
“Well, I mean, not only his future, but what he was able to do for us and come in and provide leadership,” Vrabel said. “He worked extremely hard in the time that he was rehabbing from the knee. I think he was just a really good presence each and every week. So, as we look to evaluate the football team, we’re doing that constantly, Eliot [Wolf], myself, Ryan [Cowden], Stretch [John Streicher] and Eliot’s staff.
"Just being a little bit behind of where we were with just how long the season went, where those conversations for each and every player are happening in the meetings in between the ones we have the draft players here. So, there's a lot of things that we'll do between now and the time that the football season starts. So, that's going to be the same with, I would say, most every player on our roster."
Diggs, though, faces assault and strangulation charges stemming from an incident with his personal chef. Diggs is accused of slapping and attempting to choke her in a dispute over an unpaid bill. He has a pretrial hearing scheduled for April 1.
“We’re going to let the legal process run its course, just like we’ve said before,” Vrabel said. “Those players, whether that’s Stefon or anybody else that has something, have done exactly what they’re supposed to do, been where they’re supposed to be, communicated with the court when they’re supposed to communicate with them. So, we’re going to let all that take care of itself, and then we’ll have to see what the judgments are in those particular cases.”