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Looking Into Patriots’ Options With WR Stefon Diggs

June 1st, 2025 at 10:21pm CST by Ely Allen

We’ve seen relative silence from the NFL league office and the Patriots about a video that shows recent free agent signing Stefon Diggs holding what appears to be a pink substance while on a boat with a number of women.

While the time and date of the video are currently unknown and the substance has yet to be identified, Scott Zolak of 98.5 The Sports Hub ventured that the controversial video could lead to the wide receiver’s exit from the team, per Justin Leger of NBC Sports Boston. Off of this speculation, Mike Florio of NBC Sports reportedly examined Diggs’ contract to see exactly what recourse New England would have if it intended to cut Diggs without absorbing the brunt of the recently signed deal.

Florio posits that the Patriots may have a few avenues that they could address through clauses in his contract. Firstly, any guarantees are contingent on Diggs passing a physical. Considering that Diggs has not been participating in offseason activities because of the torn ACL that ended his 2024 campaign, it stands to reason that he has not been physically cleared yet. If the team physician refuses to clear him, the team could avoid paying a majority of the guarantees in the deal.

Another clause focuses on pre-existing conditions and could help the team to avoid paying $10.6MM of the remaining $12.6MM of guarantees following the first $4MM installation of Diggs’ signing bonus. Either of those two decisions could be challenged with a grievance by Diggs, something the team has seen before when they released Antonio Brown. They had refused to pay Brown $9MM of his signing bonus and ended up settling the grievance with $5MM. Florio suggests that the team could hope for a similar result with Diggs and potentially could avoid paying the majority of the costs in question.

Lastly, Florio points to two areas of the contract that deal with the default language of the contract and a provision stipulating that Diggs would not “participate…in any conduct or activity that is illegal, unlawful, or immoral.” With a league suspension unlikely, it would be hard to prove that Diggs defaulted, and the Patriots would also have to prove what the pink powder is in order to determine if Diggs’ activity was illegal. That doesn’t appear to be likely either.

Ultimately, the team may just dismiss the situation altogether and hold on to their new receiver. If they do decide, though, that they’d like to move on, it appears that there are some avenues New England could explore.

NFL Trade Rumors: New England PatriotsStefon Diggs

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