Patriots’ Eliot Wolf Clarifies Stefon Diggs Status

While New England Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs did not play in the team’s second preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, he was still a hot topic at halftime.

Diggs, whose playing status has been the subject of some media controversy over the past couple of weeks, has experienced a bit of a reduced role as traning camp has morphed into training camp. Yet, the two-time All-Pro — who has returned to the practice fields in near-record time from an ACL tear last October — is seemingly right on track, per Patriots executive vice president of player personnel.

"I would say he's probably done more than I would have expected to this point,” Wolf told the Kraft Sports’ Patriots Preseason Network during a halftime interview. “He's been a tremendous worker. He's been out there practicing every time that we've asked him to. That's all part of (Patriots trainer) Jim Whalen's plan for him working forward."

While Diggs has been a full participant in nearly every camp practice to date, he did not play during last Friday’s preseason opener against the Washington Commanders at Gillette Stadium — likely fueling this week’s additional speculation. Diggs was also an infrequent target during 11-on-11 drills during Patriots-Vikings joint practices leading into Satruday’s game. As such, MassLive’s Karen Guregian understandably wondered whether Diggs’ reduced looks could be a harbinger of things to come.

“Based on his ineffectiveness in recent outings, has he suffered some type of a setback? Is he unhappy about his touches? It’s hard to know for certain,” Guregian wrote earlier this week. “But there’s little disputing the fact that the star receiver, who was the team’s best wideout early in camp, has disappeared from the offense in recent days. While he’s consistently been impressive in 1-on-1s, and 7-on-7s, he’s been an afterthought during full team drills.”

Upon hearing that Diggs’ had recently made some cryptic comments regarding his availability for the Pats’ Week 1 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sept. 7 at Gillette Stadium, head coach Mike Vrabel additionally weighed in on the potential regular-season status of his star receiver.

“I don’t know the context in which he said it, but you’d have to help me,” Vrabel continued. “He’s been out here almost every day. I’m excited at where he’s at. We’ll see when Week 1 comes. But he’s gonna practice today … Hopefully he helps us in the red zone … “But we can’t predict the future about Week 1,” he added. “We just know he’s gonna be out there today. He works hard and he cares, which are two important things.”