SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Patriots wide receivers coach Todd Downing started laughing this week when he was asked if Stefon Diggs was having a “down year?”
“Doesn’t he have 85 catches and over 1,000 yards coming off an ACL and he’s 32?” Downing said. “I think he’s doing OK.”
Some may see 1,013 receiving yards and four touchdowns as a “down year,” but not the Patriots. New England is in Super Bowl 2026 on Sunday in part because of their signing of Diggs in free agency last offseason.
That three-year, $69 million investment has paid off in helping second-year quarterback Drake Maye elevate his game and turn the Patriots from a 4-13 team in 2024 to a 14-3 team in 2025.
Downing was on the Vikings coaching staff in 2018 when Diggs was in his fourth season. When the Patriots considered signing him last year, Downing pushed the team to do so.
Despite perceptions that he is not a team guy, Downing said Diggs has been a great leader for the team.
“What I’ve seen in this go-round with him is a true commitment to helping elevate the game of those around him,” Downing said. “He’s got a competitive spirit that’s unmatched. He’s tenacious in trying to win anything he does between the white lines. He’s got a contagious personality. It’s been great to see him work with the younger guys, to support Drake as a young quarterback. I think he’s learned different things along the way from the scars he had in the past. It’s been cool to watch him operate in this locker room.”
For Diggs, the Patriots are the latest stop on a winding NFL journey that took him from Minnesota to Buffalo to Houston, where he tore his ACL in 2024, to New England.
He’s had some big moments in his career, like catching the Minneapolis Miracle, and has experienced team success before in Minnesota and Buffalo, but now he’s in the Super Bowl for the first time with a chance to enhance his legacy.
“I had an interesting conversation. It was somebody close to me,” Diggs said. “They were asking, ‘Why do I play?’ And I said, ‘I don’t really do it for other people.’ And they said, like, ‘So what do you do it for? If you’re not doing it for validation?’ I said, ‘I wanted to prove it to myself.’ When I say I want to prove it to myself, I’ve been playing the game for a long time.
“When it comes to legacy, I want respect, not notoriety. Notoriety is a lot of people knowing you. I’m saying when it comes down to respect, they respect my game. They respect how I approach this game and the things that I did for this game.”
Diggs has been seen as a diva receiver at times, but the Super Bowl is a chance to alter perceptions forever.
“I wanted to always be a playmaker,” he said. “I wanted to be a Hall of Fame receiver. I wanted to be a Super Bowl champion. I wanted to be an MVP. I said all these things to myself because that’s what I believe. I can’t change it. I can only try to work for it. I only try to earn it. I don’t take a day off.
“So, when it comes down to legacy, that’s what I want to be known for. People say they don’t want to be known for football, but this is what I’ve been doing since I was 5. I’m saying I want the respect. I don’t want all this time to be wasted. I want all this time to be validated in a spot of respect, not because everybody knows you or everybody said you were a good player. I’ve been doing this for a reason and a purpose.”
Downing was asked if people on the outside have a misperception of Diggs.
“I think that’s fair to say,” the longtime coach said. “I think that’s true for a lot of people if you don’t know them personally and you just judge them by snapshots you see from highlights or lowlights. I think, to a man, if you ask anybody in here about Stefon Diggs, they’d say they’re really glad he’s on our team.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
