SAN JOSE, Calif. — Stefon Diggs, New England’s Eleventh-year extensive receiver, was requested throughout Tremendous Bowl LX Opening Evening how a lot he’s modified over the course of his NFL profession.
How totally different is Patriots-era Diggs from the younger wideout who broke out with Minnesota, or the one who starred alongside Josh Allen in Buffalo?
His reply: by no means.
The one change, Diggs insisted in a passionate, two-minute-long response, is how he’s perceived.
“I don’t really feel like I’m totally different,” the 32-year-old mentioned Monday night time. “Any group I’ve been on — you may ask my teammates, my coaches — I’ve at all times labored extraordinarily exhausting. I’ve at all times been knowledgeable. I imply, I really like the sport of soccer. They received’t say I didn’t work exhausting. They received’t say I wasn’t a pacesetter. I’ve been that since I received within the league. I haven’t modified. I simply really feel like in a while in your profession, how folks obtain you is totally different.
“I can’t management folks’s perspective from a younger participant to an older participant. For me, after they say I’ve been totally different, it’s inconceivable. With regards to folks altering, while you get cash, you develop into extra of whoever you had been. I received a contract nevertheless a few years in the past — my first contract — so whoever I’ve been, I’d have been that occasions one million. Folks take a look at sure situations or sure performs or a sure sideline and begin forming an opinion about an individual that they don’t know personally.
“In case you knew me personally, you’d know that I really like the sport of soccer, and I simply at all times needed to win. I don’t care how folks really feel about that, and it’d rub lots of people the improper manner when folks simply wish to win, nevertheless it’s by no means come from a egocentric place. I at all times simply needed to win. I didn’t care the way it shook out.”
To that time, Diggs, who’s making ready to play in his first Tremendous Bowl after close to misses with the Vikings and Payments, mentioned many Patriots followers probably view him in another way now than they did when he signed final offseason. He was not New England’s first alternative on the time, coming aboard solely after the Pats struck out with Chris Godwin and different wideouts in free company.
Coming off a torn ACL that ended his lone season with the Houston Texans, Diggs emerged as each Drake Maye’s prime receiver (85 catches, 1,013 yards, 4 touchdowns in 17 video games) and an vital veteran voice able group that wanted steering.
“Right here, it simply form of labored out in my favor that we received and we went far, so persons are form of receiving it in another way, like I’m this brand-new particular person,” Diggs mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s inconceivable. Folks don’t simply change in a single day. It doesn’t take a yr. It’s extra so folks’s private expertise with you. I wager you a variety of the Patriots followers, once I (signed) right here, wasn’t too eager on me coming right here or wasn’t too joyful about it. However their opinion modified over time as a result of they didn’t know me. I wasn’t on their group. I used to be on the other aspect.
“They may have heard this or may need heard that, however now they’ve their very own private expertise with me, and I believe they take a look at it a unique manner. A variety of followers come as much as me and say, ‘I recognize what you’ve executed for this group,’ and I haven’t executed nothing however be myself. It’s extra so that you’ve received to form of self-reflect and take a look at, while you’re judging folks or judging a participant, soak up all the things that he’s in all probability been via and the state of affairs that you simply’re judging.”
He added: “If you understand me, you like me. In case you don’t love me, it’s what it’s.”
