The Bills have beefed up their offense via a trade for receiver Stefon Diggs. Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly compares the move to one that was made by his Bills more than 30 years ago.
“I love it,” Kelly said of the trade, in an appearance on One Bills Live with John Murphy and Steve Tasker, via NewYorkUpstate.com. “You know, it’s saavy and this could probably bring you back to that time period too. We had Andre [Reed], we had a couple good wide receivers, but until we brought James Lofton on. . . . I think that’s when our offense really started to thrive.”
It helped that the Bills had running back Thurman Thomas and Reed and Kelly and a willingness and ability to put pedal to metal.
“If you remember back, I think it was 1990 when James Lofton became a part of the Buffalo Bills and I think that’s when our offense really thrived because we needed that deep threat,” Kelly explained. “Andre was more of our inside guy. We needed that deep threat on the outside to go with Don Beebe on the other side, so I thought that was a great addition. And now all of a sudden we get Diggs in there and I think that’s gonna help [John] Brown, help other guys that are on our team to be able to do things a little more how we would like to not so much have to worry about one side or the other. Now you gotta worry about both sides of our offense.”
Lofton actually arrived in 1989, but he first made a major impact in 1990, the first of four straight Super Bowl seasons for the Bills. And Lofton was 34 when he began contributing in meaningful fashion to the offense; Diggs arrives at the age of 26.
Ultimately, the Buffalo offense will go as far as quarterback Josh Allen takes it. The K-Gun worked because of Kelly. The current Bills offense will work, if it does, because of Allen. It will work better with Diggs, but Allen is the guy who will make it go -- if it goes.