The Bills tried their best to have an amicable breakup with Stefon Diggs.

For the most part, the team said kind words about Diggs’s four-year stint in Buffalo, giving him his flowers for helping with Josh Allen’s development. He’s now doing the same with aiding Drake Maye in New England.

But it’s obvious that Diggs wasn’t content with just being credited for being a part of Allen’s journey on his way to capturing the MVP without Diggs last year. He knows what the Buffalo exit truly did to his reputation. He was labeled a diva and a headache for quarterbacks. It can’t be amicable when the Bills are telling TV analysts before prime-time games that everyone eats in Joe Brady’s offense and that it’s a selfless unit that doesn’t care about credit.

The Bills would definitely say these aren’t shots aimed at Diggs, but you know the brash receiver took it that way and might have gotten a nudge from Patriots coach Mike Vrabel who welcomes that kind of edge. And since we’re dissecting personas: Maye’s that guy.

Maye showed off a killer edge in the clutch during his coming out party for his first start in prime time, beating the big, bad Bills, 23–20, to hand Diggs’s former team their first loss of the season.

Diggs told his Patriots teammates he needed more from them without having to say feed me more. It didn’t need to be verbalized, while Diggs constantly torched the Bills in his return to Buffalo for a sweet revenge performance that consisted of 10 catches for 146 yards. Diggs allowed his second-year quarterback to establish a rhythm, but he wouldn’t take credit for his confidence when speaking to NBC sideline reporter Melissa Stark in the postgame TV interview.

Diggs didn’t even say I told you so about the Maye comparisons to Allen because he didn’t want to feed into that narrative after his breakout performance under the bright lights. Maye played like his MVP counterpart Sunday night, but Diggs, the ultimate competitor, knows that the great ones shouldn’t settle for comparisons. Maye made a name for himself and is well on his way to battling Allen for many years to come.

Maye ran the two-minute drills to perfection, throwing an absurd 12-yard completion to Diggs to ignite the game-winning drive. That was followed by a 19-yard pass to Kayshon Boutte before setting up kicker Andres Borregales’s 52-yard go-ahead field goal with 15 seconds left in regulation. Maye finished 22-of-30 for 273 yards and went 6-of-6 for 90 yards in the fourth quarter.

Who knows whether this everyone-eats approach will eventually help Allen and the Bills (4–1) win a Super Bowl. But feeding Diggs in the clutch and having him set the standard for a young Patriots team is exactly what Maye and Vrabel need right now

New England (3–2) and its new-look roster got to showcase itself in prime time for the first time in more than a year, proving that the dark days of the post-Tom Brady and Bill Belichick era are over. They have the look of a playoff team, and more importantly, they have a superstar in the making at quarterback.

Maye’s flashes were heard about last year through podcasts and occasionally seen on RedZone during the witching hour. For those outside New England, football fans finally got to see what Maye is made of when it matters most.

It wasn’t just Maye’s coming out party and Diggs’s revenge game. The defense that was mostly put together with free-agent additions this offseason stepped up to shut down the high-scoring Bills’ offense, which produced a season-low 20 total points. Shutdown cornerback Christian Gonzalez batted passes at the right time and new stud defensive tackle Milton Williams once again provided consistent push in the trenches.

These Patriots are on track to make the postseason for the first time since the 2021 season and it’s not because the bottom of the AFC playoff picture has a few suspect teams. New England is only a game behind Buffalo for the AFC East lead.

Maybe Diggs shouldn’t care this much, but proving his squad is better than Allen’s team would be an extremely satisfying way for him to extend his revenge against the team that may or may not have tarnished his reputation. Everyone made a big deal when Diggs was on the party boat with Cardi B.

Sure, the drama can be tiring at times, but you can’t deny the results that Diggs produces for his quarterbacks. And Diggs might have done the same for C.J. Stroud if it weren’t for a season-ending knee injury in Houston last year.

So, yes, everyone gets to eat in the Bills’ offense now that there isn’t a star receiver taking the bulk of the targets. But Maye did look better than Allen while feeding Diggs Sunday night. This so-called amicable breakup is far from over with the AFC East up for grabs this season.

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