NFL closes – The NFL says it found insufficient evidence to conclude Stefon Diggs violated its personal conduct policy, closing its review after a Massachusetts court acquitted him of assault and strangulation charges last month.
When Stefon Diggs stepped off the field last month, the courtroom outcome was supposed to settle the matter. It didn’t end the NFL’s scrutiny, but it did help shape how it concluded. This week. the league closed its review and said it had not found enough evidence to discipline him under its personal conduct policy.
“The league notified Stefon Diggs today that it concluded its investigation and there is insufficient evidence to support a finding of a personal conduct policy violation,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy told the Associated Press.
The decision follows Diggs’s acquittal in Massachusetts court last month. where he was found not guilty of assault and strangulation charges. The case centered on allegations that Diggs slapped and choked his personal chef during a dispute over payment. Diggs pleaded not guilty and was later cleared of all charges.
At the time of the acquittal. one of Diggs’s lawyers. Mitch Schuster. said in a statement. “The evidence has shown what we’ve maintained from day one: Mr. Diggs was wrongly accused. and this case represents exactly the kind of opportunistic targeting that players can face the moment they step off the field.”.
With the NFL review now closed, attention turns to what happens next for Diggs, 32, who has been a free agent since the Patriots cut him in March. He spent one season with New England, helping the team reach the Super Bowl, where it eventually lost to Seattle.
On the field, the numbers remained strong. This past season was Diggs’s seventh 1,000-yard season in eight years. He caught 85 of his 102 targets for 1,013 yards and four touchdowns.
But the business side of the NFL moved quickly. Diggs had signed a three-year deal worth up to $69 million last offseason with the Patriots. His cap hit was $10.5 million last year and it was scheduled to rise to $26.5 million this season. New England released him and later traded for A.J. Brown and signed Romeo Doubs, revamping its wide receiver room.
The wider receiver room is also where the question of Diggs’s future kept lingering. During this week’s minicamp, coach Mike Vrabel was asked about the possibility of bringing him back.
“I mean, I think we are probably at the number that we would need right now. I would not say anything is off the table,” Vrabel said. “We would want to add anybody that could help us. I am not going to give a percentage on it. but I think we are happy with where we are at right now with the numbers and the people in the receiver room.”.
“I appreciate Stefon as a person, as a player and what he did for us last year. I value that. He helped us win football games, helped us get to where we got. But right now I don’t think that that is something that I think we are exploring. But I would never say no.”
Beyond New England, Diggs told TMZ that he’s keeping an open mind as he navigates free agency. The Patriots were his fourth NFL stop, after previous stints in Minnesota, Buffalo, and Houston.
The sequence now ends with the same conclusion from two different systems: a Massachusetts court acquitted Diggs last month. and the NFL says it has insufficient evidence to support discipline. For a player whose future is tied as much to roster decisions as to headlines. the league’s closed file shifts the focus back to football—and back to the teams that still have to decide what comes next.
Stefon Diggs NFL personal conduct policy Massachusetts court assault and strangulation acquittal Patriots free agency Mike Vrabel A.J. Brown Romeo Doubs Mitch Schuster