Superstar receiver Stefon Diggs chimes in on Houston Texans Super Bowl chatter

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Superstar receiver Stefon Diggs chimes in on Houston Texans Super Bowl chatter
We like his mindset. Photo via: Houston Texans YouTube/Screenshot.

When Stefon Diggs was dealt to Houston from Buffalo in April, many believed the addition of the superstar receiver vaulted the Texans into Super Bowl contention.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday for the first time since the trade, Diggs said it’s far too early to be talking about winning a ring.

“I’m going to take it one day at a time,” he said. “It starts in practice. It starts in the walk-through. It starts in the meeting room. So, for me, winning is always in the forefront of my brain with everything that I do ... but it’s one thing at a time rather than just jumping the gun. I don’t put the carriage before the horse.”

The Texans made a remarkable turnaround last season thanks in large part to the additions of quarterback C.J. Stroud, the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, AP Defensive Rookie of the Year Will Anderson and and coach DeMeco Ryans. Houston, which had won just 11 games combined in the three previous seasons, won the AFC South and a wild-card playoff game against Cleveland before falling to Baltimore in the divisional round.

Now the Texans have added Diggs to a receiving group already featuring Nico Collins, who had a career-high 1,297 yards receiving last season, and Tank Dell, who had seven TD grabs as a rookie last year before breaking his leg in his 11th game.

Diggs is a four-time Pro Bowler and was an All-Pro in 2020. He has had at least 1,000 yards receiving in each of the past six seasons and finished with 1,183 yards last season.

He said he was happy when he was traded to the Texans and is thrilled to be working with an offense led by Stroud. Diggs added that everyone has been helpful and welcoming as he’s adjusted to his new team.

“Just spending time with the guys, being around the team and building that camaraderie,” he said. “I’ve been in the league for a little while now so being around a good group of guys is always a breath of fresh air.”

Stroud and Diggs bonded at the Pro Bowl in February and have only gotten closer since becoming teammates. The quarterback said he and Diggs have already had many conversations that he believes will help him on the field.

“He’s fitting in great. ... He’s come in and been a leader which I’m proud of him for,” Stroud said. “And just really has been unselfish (and) nothing but just amazing so far. And I’m very excited to work with him.”

Ryans has already been impressed with the 30-year-old Diggs.

“What I’ve seen is a guy who I thought we would get. A guy who’s made plays,” Ryans said. “I think every time we've thrown him the ball, he’s come down with it. He’s a surehanded guy, a really good teammate, great energy around the building and the locker room with the guys.”

“So, I’m excited to continue to see his growth in learning our offense and how we do things, but couldn’t be more pleased with where he is right now,” he continued.

While Diggs spent most of his time with the media Tuesday talking about his future with the Texans, he reflected a bit on his past in Buffalo. He spoke at length about his affinity for Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

“When I got to Buffalo, Josh was and still is my guy,” Diggs said. “People don’t really understand what it’s like to be out there. He really embraced me. ... We spent a lot of time (together) and I probably wouldn’t be right here if it wasn’t for him. I’ve got a lot of love for that boy.”

You can watch Diggs' full interview above.

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Kyle Schwarber won the MVP award for the NL. Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

Kyle Schwarber was nervous.

He had played in Game 7 of the World Series, homered for the United States in the World Baseball Classic.

But he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off.

No one had.

“That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shootout,” he said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after a 6-6 tie Tuesday night in which it wasted a six-run, seventh-inning lead.

 

Schwarber earned the MVP award, going 0 for 2 with a walk as the NL won for the second time in its last 12 tries. He became the first non-pitcher MVP without a hit.

“It will be interesting to see where that goes,” said AL manager Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees. “There’s probably a world where you could see that in the future, where maybe it’s in some regular-season mix. I wouldn’t be surprised if people start talking about it like that.”

In baseball’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shootout, the game was decided by having three batters from each league take three swings each off coaches.

Boone picked Brent Rooker, Randy Arozarena and Aranda on Monday, and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts picked Eugenio Suárez, Schwarber and Pete Alonso for the NL. Because Suárez was hit on the left hand by a fastball in the eighth inning, the NL turned to its alternate, Kyle Stowers.

Players from both teams stood outside their dugouts, some already in street clothes, jumping and shouting after each long ball from their side. Yankees coach Travis Chapman threw to the AL batters and Dodgers coach Dino Ebel to the NL hitters.

Rooker put the AL ahead by homering on his last two swings, and Stowers hit one. Randy Arozarena boosted the AL lead to 3-1.

Ebel had thrown BP to Schwarber two years ago at the WBC.

“He asked me right before, he was like, where do you want it?” Schwarber recalled “I’m like, just middle. And he’s like, ‘I gotcha.’”

He took two pitches and deposited the third just over the center-field fence. Schwarber took another, then hit a 461-foot drive over the right-center bullpen. After letting two more go by, he dropped to a knee while pulling the third, craned his neck and held his bat in the air as the ball landed in the fourth row of the Chop House seats.

“I didn’t hit it, obviously, my best, but I was thinking I got enough of it,” Schwarber said. “And I was just kind of down there, hoping, saying: go, go, go. And it went. And it was awesome.”

 

Aranda followed with a fly well short of the center-field warning track, drove a pitch about a foot shy of the top of the right-field wall and hit an opposite-field pop that dropped in medium left.

Alonso, a two-time Home Run Derby champion, didn’t have to bat and patted Schwarber on the head as fireworks went off at Truist Field.

“I felt like a closer going into a game,” Alonso said, “and then it’s like, wait, the guy in the field got a double play to end the inning. You’re not going in.”

What was the score?

MLB, after consulting with the Elias Sports Bureau, said in 2022 that All-Star Games ending in a swing-off would be listed as tied, with a notation of the game being decided in a swing-off. MLB’s official postgame notes listed Tuesday’s outcome as a 7-6 NL victory.

In earlier action

Ketel Marte’s two-run double in the first had put the NL ahead, and Alonso’s three-run homer off Kris Bubic and Corbin Carroll’s solo shot against Casey Mize opened a 6-0 lead in the sixth.

The AL comeback began when Rooker hit a three-run pinch homer against Randy Rodríguez in a four-run seventh that included Bobby Witt Jr.’s RBI groundout. Robert Suarez allowed consecutive doubles to Byron Buxton and Witt with one out in ninth, and Steven Kwan’s infield hit on a three-hopper to third off Edwin Díaz drove in the tying run.

Heat on the mound

Paul Skenes, the first pitcher to start the All-Star Game each of his first two seasons, reached 100 mph on four pitches in a perfect first. Jacob Misiorowski, a controversial inclusion after pitching in just five major league games in his rookie season, fired nine pitches of 100 mph or more in a one-hit eighth 34 days after his major league debut. The 23-year-old righty, added to the NL roster by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, reached 102.3 mph. There were 21 pitches of 100 mph or more, down from a record 23 last year.

Robot umpire debuts

Four of five challenges were successful in the first use of the robot umpire in the All-Star Game.

Styling

Teams were back in their regular-season club jerseys — whites for the NL, mostly grays for the AL — after four years of special All-Star uniforms that were much criticized. The AL leads 48-45 with two ties.

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