ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos offensive tackle Garett Bolles put out the call early this offseason. Asked what the team needed to win one more game and advance to the Super Bowl, he quickly said “we just need a couple more playmakers and the sky is the limit.”
The Broncos finally answered Bolles’ request Tuesday, trading for Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. The Broncos sent first-, third- and fourth-round picks in April’s draft to the Dolphins in exchange for Waddle and a fourth-round pick in April.
Waddle is expected at the Broncos’ complex Wednesday for a physical to formally complete the deal and is potentially the kind of playmaker who fits the Broncos’ offense as well as quarterback Bo Nix’s tendencies.
The sixth-year receiver arrives in Denver with three years left on an extension he signed in 2024 with $32.2 million in guarantees over the next two seasons. His three 1,000-yard seasons over the past five seasons — which came in the first three years of his career — are more than any Broncos player over that span. He led the league with 18.1 yards per reception in 2022, a season in which he had 75 receptions for a career-best 1,356 yards and eight touchdowns (also a career high).
The Broncos pursued Waddle before the trade deadline this past season and picked up the chase again at the combine last month. He is now the most significant roster change from last season after Denver spent the first week of free agency re-signing its own players.
Waddle’s catch-and-run abilities through the intermediate and deep areas of the field should be welcomed by Nix. The 26-year-old was 15th in QBR this past season (58.3), as he led the NFL in pass attempts at 612. But Nix completed only 38.7% of his passes 20 or more yards down the field last season and his 63.4% completion percentage on all throws was 24th in the league.
Nix’s best areas of the field were hook routes, where he was third in QBR (95.0), pivot routes (fourth, 90.4) and crossing routes (14th, 81.2). Those are all spots where Waddle, an explosive player who gets to top speed quickly, can enhance what Nix does best.
Waddle’s yards per route overall last season (2.34) ranked 11th best in the league, well ahead of the highest-ranked Broncos receiver on the list — Courtland Sutton at No. 43 (1.75). On crossing routes, Waddle was 10th in the league at 3.0 yards receiving per crossing route run. Troy Franklin was the highest-ranked Broncos receiver in yards per crossing route (No. 18, 2.5) and the only Denver player among the league’s top 75 in that category.
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Stephen A.: Jaylen Waddle a huge pickup for Broncos
Stephen A. Smith reacts to the Broncos trading for Jaylen Waddle and reflects on the Bills’ failed pursuit of the wide receiver.
Waddle should also pull some attention away from Sutton, who saw increasing attention from defenses last season as injuries impacted the Broncos’ receiving rotation. Sutton, who finished the season with 74 receptions for 1,017 yards and seven touchdowns, was limited to eight receptions over his last three games (the regular-season finale and Denver’s two playoff games).
Broncos coach Sean Payton said at season’s end that he liked the composition of the wide receiver depth chart, where Sutton led a group that has included four draft picks over the last three drafts, including Franklin, Pat Bryant and Marvin Mims Jr.
“We’ve got different [kinds of players]. … We have speed, we have size, we have all the things I’m used to [that] you’d want to have in a good offense,” Payton said when the season ended.
But he wasn’t pleased with what he considered too many dropped passes. Wide receivers coach Keary Colbert was one of the assistant coaches Payton fired after Denver’s AFC Championship Game loss to the New England Patriots, replacing him with Ronald Curry.
Waddle’s arrival also seems to indicate another season of three-wide-receiver set usage, with Waddle potentially carving into Mims’ work. The Broncos were seventh in the league in snaps overall in three-wide-receiver sets last season, and their percentage of plays in three-wide sets (63%) was 11th.
Payton and newly named offensive coordinator Davis Webb now have the chance to fit Waddle into any and all offseason tweaks. Payton has said Webb will call plays this upcoming season — something Payton has done in his nearly two-decade head coaching career — in part to pick up the pace on offense. The Broncos had one first down in the second half of the season-ending loss to the Patriots — a loss in which they were without an injured Nix — and their longest drive after halftime went for 17 yards.
Payton fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, who had been on a Payton staff for 15 years, two days after the season ended. Ben DiNucci, a backup quarterback who was with the Broncos in 2023 and had been signed to the practice squad after Nix’s injury, took to X earlier this offseason to endorse the decision to make Webb the playcaller as “the best thing possible for that building.”
Adding Waddle should only help the cause.
