‘I’m never the bigger person,’ tempers flare between Texans’ Stefon Diggs and Packers, Jaire Alexander

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Tempers boiled over before kickoff at Lambeau Field as Texans Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs and Green Bay Packers standout cornerback Jaire Alexander renewed their heated and longtime rivalry.

Diggs and the Packers got into it before the game started and words were exchanged and some pushing and shoving ensued before cooler heads prevailed. No punches were thrown.

From Diggs’ perspective, he wasn’t going to back down once he overhead some trash talking from the Packers’ players.

“I was walking to the locker room at the beginning of the game, and I heard somebody chirping,” Diggs said. “I’m never the bigger person. I don’t, if I’m by myself or with a million people. I’m never the bigger person. ain’t letting (stuff) go. I ain’t with the football tough guy (stuff).”

Diggs and Alexander famously had an exchange in the tunnel that continued on the field during a matchup between the Packers and Bills.

Ten toes down?

“Always,” Diggs said. “I ain’t letting (stuff) go.”

This wasn’t the first skirmish between Diggs and Alexander. Their history of bad blood dates all the way back to Diggs’ time with the Minnesota Vikings, continued to his stint with the Buffalo Bills and, now, it got testy again Sunday.

Diggs caught six passes for 108 yards and a touchdown two years ago in that game and has scored in eight consecutive games against Green Bay. Following that game, Diggs emphasized that he “finished it” after the flareup.

This time, Diggs had five catches for 23 yards on a team-high seven targets with no touchdowns as the passing game sputtered.

“I didn’t see it, so I understand it happened,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “Things like that happen. Those guys have a history. They’ve been going at it before. We don’t want to encourage that. We just want to go play ball the right way and make sure it’s settled on the field. We can’t be about chirping and all the extra stuff. We’ve just got to be executing when the ball is snapped.”

Diggs’ flareup extended to Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon. Alexander didn’t conduct interviews.

“You know, it’s intensity,” Nixon said. “It’s what it is. We don’t take disrespect, and anybody starts anything, we’re going to finish it. As top-flight DBs, that’s what we do.”

Before this game, Diggs didn’t add fuel to the fire between himself and Alexander. Diggs and Alexander have faced each other five times previously. In those games, Alexander has one interception and six passes defensed. Diggs has piled up 44 catches for 419 yards and six touchdowns.

“I could say, ‘Yeah,’ but it’s no different approach than any other week,” Diggs said. “I’m not going out there trying to prove nothing that I ain’t trying to prove each and every other week, every play, every day, try to earn it during the week in practice. I don’t really get into all that extra (stuff).”

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com.