Quandre Diggs returns to Detroit ‘blessed’ by Lions experience—and by perch with Seahawks

The jokes are so common they are trite: Nobody who leaves Detroit liked Detroit.

Quandre Diggs does. He always will.

The former Lions captain until his trade to the Seahawks in the fall of 2019 returns Sunday for the first time as a visiting player at Ford Field. That’s where Seattle (1-2) will play at Detroit (1-2) at 10 a.m.

“Of course you think about it. It’s the first time going back since the trade,” Diggs said Wednesday. “It’s always a special place for me.

“Detroit is what made me into who I am now, so I’m forever grateful for my opportunity. It will be great to see some good friends.

“I think it will be super, super dope.”

Wait, the Lions? The team whose most recent first-place finish was in 1993? Whose last playoff win was in 1991, back in Barry Sanders’ prime? The team that’s had 12 head coaches since 2000?

That Detroit?

“Man, you got to think, bro, I spent my first 4 1/2 years in the league (there). So, Detroit was willing to take a shot on a sixth-round guy from Texas, you know?” Diggs said.

“Might not have been me. Might not be who I am today.”

Who he is today is an unquestioned Seahawks leader. He is coming off consecutive Pro Bowl selections, the first two of his career, in his first two full seasons with Seattle.

Coach Pete Carroll and the Seahawks love Diggs so much they gave him a three-year, $40 million contract this spring. That was two months after he’d broken his leg in the team’s season finale at Arizona.

Seahawks teammates voted him captain of the defense this summer, to replace the departed Bobby Wagner.

“I’m here now. I’m blessed,” Diggs said Wednesday.

He also said that about Detroit.

“I’m blessed. The Ford family. Jim Caldwell,” Diggs said, naming the Lions’ owners and his first head coach with the Lions. “That coaching staff, that’s what made it.

“You guys have got to think, before I was here with you guys I was making a name for myself in Detroit.”

That name was as a force at multiple positions — all the positions — in the Lions’ secondary: nickel, dime, cornerback and both safety spots.

It was also as an outspoken, popular personality inside Detroit’s locker room. As he got into his third and fourth years with the Lions and in the NFL, Diggs became known as a direct communicator who told it like it is — to teammates, coaches, the media, everybody.

Quandre Diggs with Matt Patricia

The Lions fired Caldwell on New Year’s Day 2018. That was after he led Detroit to two consecutive 9-7 seasons and two playoff appearances. That was as many postseasons as the Lions had in the 16 years before they hired Caldwell in 2014.

Former Lions players such as ex-quarterback Charlie Batch last fall continue to say Detroit messed up firing Caldwell.

It was messed up for Diggs, too.

The Lions hired Matt Patricia a day after he coached the Patriots’ defense in the Super Bowl in Feb. 2018, to become a first-time head coach. It’s been called “a day that will live in Detroit Lions’ infamy” by USA Today.

Patricia came from New England’s Bill Belichick mentality: Every player stay silent, in his lane and do his job. Patricia was a good friend of the Lions’ general manager at the time, Bob Quinn.

Patricia and Diggs were not exactly best buds.

Practicing in the snow

In November of his first season in Detroit Patricia had the Lions practice outside in the Michigan snow instead of in their indoor practice facility — even though the Lions’ next four games were indoors.

Diggs, then the team’s co-captain, never forgot that.

He said on a podcast in 2020 with his former Lions teammate and good friend Darius Slay, who is now with Philadelphia, that Detroit’s players threatened to boycott Patricia’s team meetings during the week leading into the final game of that 2018 season.

That Lions team finished 6-10. It was the best record of Patricia’s disastrous 2 1/2 seasons leading the team.

In the middle of the 2019, on their way to a 3-12-1 season, Patricia and the Lions traded their captain to the Seahawks for a draft pick.

Diggs told the Detroit Free Press a week after the trade he believed his strong personality in the locker room is why Patricia and Quinn traded him.

Diggs didn’t fit the Patriots’ way: Shut up and do your job.

“I think it was more of just a control thing,” he told the Free Press in Nov. 2019. “Them wanting to control the locker room. Control the locker room. Control voices in the locker room.”

Wednesday, Diggs said he didn’t want to get all into the details again of why the Lions sent him away.

“Those guys are gone,” he said. “Dan Campbell’s in (as Patricia’s successor as full-time head coach). I love what they’re doing. It’s cool to see those guys back on the right track. ...

“I mean, you guys have been around me long enough. You know I’m a pretty outspoken guy. Some people can’t take that, so, there you go.”

Seahawks let Diggs be Diggs

Carroll’s way with the Seahawks is the opposite: Please, don’t shut up while doing your job.

Diggs has said already this season his Seahawks “shouldn’t be feeding into all the hype, anyway” after they beat Russell Wilson and Denver in the opener, because “obviously, we’re not that good.”

That was following Diggs’ defense getting steamrolled by the 49ers in Seattle’s 27-7 loss two weeks ago.

After Seattle lost at home to Atlanta last weekend because the Falcons ran and passed all over the Seahawks’ defense, Diggs said his team wasn’t physical enough.

His defensive coordinator supports Diggs — and his comments.

“I’m not upset or disappointed by his comment,” Clint Hurtt said Wednesday.

“Players, they can have their opinions when they work their ass off every day.”

No, Seattle isn’t Detroit.

“I’ve grown so much being here,” Diggs said. “Mentally, I’m in a better place, a better head space here.

“When you can be yourself, you can be a full player. You don’t have to hide who you are.”

Diggs said with the Seahawks he can get ticked off and yell during games and practices, make comments in the media that raise eyebrows, “say what I want, and Pete kind of looks at me and laughs.”

“I think that’s pretty cool,” Diggs said.

On the field, Diggs has gone from being a jack of all defensive-backfield trades in Detroit to focusing solely in Seattle on playing deep, center-field safety.

“I’ve been able to really focus in on one position,” he said.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool being multiple to figure things out. But you become good at a lot of things, and not great at one thing.”

The last two seasons he’s earned the first two Pro Bowl selections of his career. Last October he became the only NFL player with three interceptions in each of the last five seasons.

He has stated his goal is to become an All-Pro, to be considered around the league as its best free safety.

He already considers himself that.

That gives him authority to tell it like it is, stressing personal accountability, inside and outside the locker room.

“I think my teammates know who I am. I might catch flak from some fans, but you guys have been around me enough to where I’m cracking jokes all of the time. I keep it light 95% of the time,” Diggs said. “The 5% that I go off is, come on, we are all playing. It is a business.

“I don’t really do the rah-rah stuff. I’m more of, I get the point across.”