The Seahawks didn’t make a splash on the first day of the NFL’s legal tampering period. Instead, the team stuck to re-signing their own pending free agents. No. 1 on the list was two-time Pro Bowl free safety Quandre Diggs, who agreed to terms on a three-year, $40 million deal.
The Seahawks are now spending an unholy amount of money on their starting safeties between Diggs and Jamal Adams, but allowing Diggs to leave would have been far more costly. He was arguably the league’s best coverage deep safety last season from Week 4 on and keeping him was a no-brainer even for this front office which has made so many high-profile blunders in recent years.
The best reason to re-sign Diggs is that he keeps a tight lid on the top of Seattle’s defense – plays that are erased before they even happen can be difficult to quantify – especially when you often won’t see what he’s doing from the broadcast angle. That doesn’t make it any less valuable.
Diggs is also an exceptional ballhawk, tallying 13 interceptions in just 38 games played since being traded from Detroit.
In fact, Diggs is one of the top ballhawks in the entire league at his position. He shared this interesting number from Next Gen Stats on Twitter yesterday, which ranks him No. 2 in the league behind the legendary Devin McCourty in ball hawk rate, measuring the percentage of plays where a safety gets either a pick or a PBU.
Quandre Diggs was a consistent presence on the back end of the Seahawks defense last season, aligning at safety on a league-high 1,114 snaps (96% of his snaps).
» Diggs (since 2020): 27.8% ball hawk rate (2nd in NFL, min. 50 targets) https://t.co/Q0bPo11Qsh pic.twitter.com/idsX8SRvl6
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) March 14, 2022
Excellent stuff.
Letting Bobby Wagner go the way they did was very unfortunate, and it’ll be tough to reconcile the Russell Wilson trade until they find another legitimate starting QB. However, keeping Diggs at least prevents this month of offseason work from being a total failure for the Seahawks.
