Quandre Diggs says he's over it, that he's "done talking" about his time in Detroit.
But he can't help but smile when asked about his resurgence with the Seahawks last season after being dumped by the Lions. He was shipped to Seattle for a fifth-round pick and responded by snaring three picks in five games.
It was a strange situation all the way around. The Lions gave Diggs a three-year, $18.6 million extension in 2018, the reward for a sixth-round pick who became a playmaker on defense. They named him a captain in 2019. And then they traded him a couple months later, believing that he'd lost a step on the field and was becoming a bad influence in the locker room. Diggs would say he was 'blindsided' by the move.
Detroit will point to a rash of missed tackles as evidence that Diggs wasn't the same player last season. Diggs will say he was playing through a hamstring injury as he tried to honor his captaincy. So when he picked off Jimmy Garoppolo in his first game with the Seahawks, he had some things to get off his chest.
"All I did was go make the plays I was supposed to make. I’m playing the same game I was playing in Detroit, I just didn’t have those same opportunities. I wasn’t getting the long throws or the tips, I wasn’t getting those opportunities because they had me doing something that I didn’t want to be doing," said Diggs. "It’s just like, when I get those opportunities, I go somewhere where I’m happy, I go somewhere where they just let me play ball and boom, stuff starts happening. So I felt great. It gave me confidence back in myself where it’s like, man, they can’t touch me still."