NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Broncos Trade for Jaylen Waddle!

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

The team that went silent for Free Agency Frenzy awoke from its slumber with an offseason-defining trade for Miami Dolphins star wide receiver Jaylen Waddle. The Denver Broncos, who fell one win short of a Super Bowl appearance last season, will add a dynamic offensive playmaker to their already star-studded roster. Gregg Rosenthal and Ollie Connolly join forces for instant analysis of one of the biggest moves this NFL offseason!NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You've got to be a little sick to love this game. and we got some sickos. Welcome to NFL Daily, where Sean Payton has come up with the best way possible to get back on Bo Nix's good side. I'm Greg Rosenthal. I'm here in my garage doing a little breaking news. Ali Connolly is joining me, and Ali told me I woke him up from a nap

to let him know that the Denver Broncos have traded for Jalen Waddle. They're doing the thing. Yeah, forget Huberman, forget any of the bro science people, thing that wakes up from a nap the quickest is Sean Peyton dropping the manhood on the table and saying we're going for this. Yes. You were hearing, and by you, I mean me and maybe the

football watching populace that the Broncos were working on something. There was a couple of the local reporters. I thought it was maybe A.J. Brown. Then I heard Akib Talib on just Monday being like, just watch, they're going to do something. It's like, how does Akeep to leave already know that this trade

is going to happen? And they do it. They get Jalen Waddle from the Dolphins. who I believe was not necessarily on the table, but he very much was because I think it's a fair deal. You can tell me what you think in terms of the compensation. The dolphins get the Broncos first round pick, so that's the third to last pick of the first round, and a third round pick for Jalen Waddle.

They also swap fourth, so the dolphins actually, or the Broncos rather move up a little bit in the fourth round. It's not that important there, but they get a receiver. in his prime, who's been pretty durable, despite the idea that he's always playing through injuries, what do you think first of the compensation before we get to the Broncos fit of it off? I think it's probably a slight overpay, given where Waddle's at in his career. I know you said he's in his prime, but you've got to think of the opportunity cost of that

first round pick, and now that extends over five seasons. I think if you look at just the Broncos roster in general, it's really hard to find any kind of obvious hole. You kind of have to hit it out of the park to even improve some of the areas of the roster. And so if you're looking at where they were picking the draft, the receivers that could be available, which I think is what they're looking for, is one of these movable offensive pieces, maybe play a little in the backfield, do creative things with, you're looking at could you get into the KC Concepcion stakes late in the first round?

Probably not. Probably goes a little earlier. So just looking at how the draft board's going to lie and what they could actually use, like, juice the level of a position. I think chasing a veteran made a ton of sense. Just maybe the additional add-ons there. It smacks a little bit to me of. We so desperately wanted the guy at the trade deadline.

The old regime wouldn't quite commit to it and we're convinced by our offer. We're going back in the offseason. We're just going to do whatever it takes to get the deal over the line. Okay. I hear that. And I'm not even like a huge Waddle guy. Whatever the consensus is on Waddle, I'm maybe just right at it or slightly below. But this felt fair to me.

I guess the question is, would you rather pay Romeo Dobbs a couple million dollars more than he got from the Patriots? or Wondale or Rashid Jihad, if you like him, more than he got in free agency and save the pick. I think the bird in the hand with Waddle is worth more. It's the 30th pick in the first round. So everyone's going to get caught up on first and third. But it's the third to last pick of the first round. It's the very end right before the comp pick start of the third round.

And you kind of know what you're getting with Jalen Waddle. And I like that he's cost controlled. I assume, and I guess I shouldn't, that they're not giving him a huge extension right off the bat because he has signed for the next two years for what about $48 million combined. So to me, that's a pretty good deal for a very good receiver. Maybe not a true number one, but immediately to me, the most explosive and dynamic receiver that the Broncos have. The most explosive in the way Sean Payton does things anyway, you're still kind of just slotted into a position. It doesn't kind of orient around one number one guy,

one number two guy. And I think if you just think of it that way of who's number two in the progression at certain times, he's, I think, about as good as you can find anywhere on the market. I'm much higher on him than it sounds like you are. I think he is a more all-around player than just being wheels and juice. And I think they can get really creative with him in a way that might make Daniel for all his creativity. That kind of tilted around H. Chan and some other guys rather than did necessarily Jalen Water's skill set in terms of removing him around the formation. So Sean Pathan finally went and got one of these guys. He'd been begging for one of these players. It feels like three seasons now.

Finally, they deliver it. Yeah, that's why I'm all for this trade for both sides. I think it makes sense for both sides. I think it's riskier from the dolphin side, and we'll get to that. But yeah, Waddle's 27 years old, had a conversation just on text with our friend, handsome Hank, NFL UK Hank, Henry Hodgson. And I agreed with him. Like, Waddle occupies this space somewhere between a number one, quote unquote,

and a number two receiver. Like, he is dynamic. I think he's, I love his movement, just to get open, his releases. Like, he's a very, very good receiver. Is he, like, a true top 20 receiver? Probably not. If you go through the list,

there's just so many good receivers in the league that he falls somewhere beneath that. So he occupies this middle territory, and I think he improves their team a lot. And I just don't know, like, like he that's why the compensation i'm struggling to like land on wait like that feels about right for me and the money feels about right for me and it just feels like the right time to go after a player like that because you're not going to find that guy in the draft i mean maybe you could but the odds are

even with their number 11 overall pick i believe they have the odds are you're not going to find someone as good as jalen waddle he was a top 10 pick who i think has lived up to his billing i don't think he's been way better than you would expect or way worse. He's what you want. But if you look at the average guys who are taken in the top 10, he's pretty much right there. The problem is I always compare it to Devante Smith, and I just love Devonty Smith.

And they kind of compared as in between one and two. And to me, no, Devante Smith is just a superior player, but Waddle is still very, very good. And it's just that you know what you're getting. Like we've seen the concept at the NFL level. I think they're a little close than you're giving credit for. I think Waddle has a chance to be special in a new environment. The offensive lines he's play behind, the offensive architecture of the ball has to be out in two seconds flat,

hasn't always played into some of the down-the-field skill set stuff you're talking about. And I agree with you on, those A1 superstars have this kind of gravity that tilts the defense in a way where everyone else can feast. And then even when they're doubled up, they're just more people. Those like the best guys, AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, he's not in that bracket. But that's just not what Sean Payton does anyway. He lines guys up where they're going to line up no matter what. And so it's just if he is playing inside a whole bunch and it's all these deep. break-to-grass style of routes, which it's going to be.

I just think he's going to be open the entire time. There's going to be better pass protection. He's going to have more opportunities to make plays in the ball down the field. They'll be able to do all the kind of the whirring, cool, creative stuff behind the backfield. So I think the production is going to be probably off the scale. Yeah, his yards per catch led the league in 2022. You mentioned receivers with gravity. Certainly Tyree Kill was one of those for him.

And that was his biggest season, just box score-wise, gets over 13. hundred yards. But the fact that he's had a lesser total the last couple of years is more of the function of his environment. I tweeted out. Like, I thought this was a fair deal. And some dolphins fans, like, yeah, for the, you know, 10 games that Waddle's, you know, on the field this year. And I went and looked. I was like, hasn't he been extremely durable? I know he has little injuries during games. And he's like on the injury report. He's missed six games in five years. So I don't know. I don't know what you want with Jalen Wada. How do you think he fits in with Cortland Sutton, they kind of go into the season as co-number-ones for what it's worth.

I think Waddle will be a higher volume player. And I just like their receiver group much more now that Troy Franklin, Marvin Mims, and Pat and Bryant are three, four, five. Because that's a fun three four, five. But I just like it better that those three guys specifically are kind of knocked down a peg doing their roles in that Sean Payton offense. Yeah, I agree with you. If you don't have one of the one A guys, I think you just got to get contrasting offsetting. skill sets. So you got the big body guy type in Colin Southing go make plays on the sideline for you. You got the splash play creator. They're in Waddle. Then they've kind of gotten Franklin some more

reliable and Bryant, someone who could maybe year three, year four, have this kind of breakout kind of high weight speed. Will he ever tap into being a professional receiver? But not having to rely on that guy going into December and January, I think was essential for them coming out. And I'm just happy because going into the offseason, they were the real key team for me. And they just kind of sat and waited out and you knew they were waiting on something. I thought it could have been A-Champ. I thought A-Chm was more available than Waddle was, but it's clear based on what they tried to do at the deadline, then coming back to it, that they'd keep on Waddle all the way

through. Yeah, we talked about that. We gave out our grades for the Broncos, and we kind of hinted at, like, it feels like they're going to do more, so premature grade. I know, like their off-season a lot more. When they basically stood pat, I think they wanted to upgrade it running back. That didn't happen for them. Who knows if they look at that position in the job.

draft. They could upgrade a tight end, too, but they still have Evan Ingram there, and I guess they move forward. You kind of mentioned, okay, Devon A. Chan, maybe he wasn't available. I didn't think Waddle was necessarily available, and they were only going to do it for the right price, which makes sense, and maybe that could have come during the draft, and it ends up coming right now. What do you think it means for this Dolphins rebuild? I think I do like when teams

are self-aware and those guys have gone in there and looked under the hood watch the film of their own players and say this thing is not even close, just kind of visually to what we want a team to look like, let alone just like the quality of the talent on the roster. So I admire them to self-reporting and saying we're stripping this thing down and committing to it

all the way. It's a little bit puzzling to do the Willis deal and then kind of shave everything else off around it, particularly at the receive a spot. If you were able to get a good pick for Achan with agency looming, though he's an exciting and blurry player. Is he truly a tempore building block for the next five, six years? Probably not. With Waddle, I think he could maybe have that kind of career for you. So that part's a little bit puzzling to me that they will commit to Willis with this really smart contract that if he turns into a superstar, we've hit it out at the park. If not,

we go back into the draft. Timeline is pretty clean to strip the rest of it down. A little bit puzzling when they've done what dealing with Malik Willis. But I do like that they kind of have a pretty clear identity of who they are. When you look at some of the other rebuilds going on around the league and teams kind of lying to themselves and convincing themselves about who they could be, the dolphins have just kind of accepted where they're out in the pecking order. Waddle's a tough one because he's only 27 years old now.

You're hoping to be in the playoffs if you're a new coach in GM by year three. So that's 2029. He still would be young enough at that point at receiver, certainly to be a dynamic player. And I do think it's harder ultimately. to find plus plus starters like Waddle than it is to find the draft picks. But I think ultimately they got a fair price for him. And let's look at what they have in the draft now.

They have two firsts. They have the 11th pick and the 30th pick. They have a second. And then here's where it really gets wild. After adding this third, they now have four of them because they got one for Jalen Phillips. They got one just in a draft day trade with the Texans last year. And now they get the Broncos pick in addition to the, their own. So that's a ton of draft capital. You now have so many thirds that you figured they'll

probably end up swapping one of those out at some point to get a second or or package things to get another first next year to because they're a team that can afford to be patient. And maybe they just didn't see Waddle as their prototypical type of receiver. And John Eric Sullivan, the new GM, he's all about the draft, the draft, the draft. And I mean, they are loading up in draft picks. And like they're going to be able to have their vision this year and we'll see what kind of players that they want to get. And it's interesting because every team league is desperate to get those 27 draft picks and try and get out of the 26 draft picks.

Why teams are just say, hey, here's a one and three. We're good. Let's get the player in now. But it'll be interesting to see if they just decide we're going to use all those picks. We've got to get a young roster. We've got to be ready to compete in year three. Or if like you said, will they bundle some together? Will they try and get themselves extra stuff early in 27?

Will they take that 30th overall pick and try and auction it for? or Ty Simpson late in the first round, a team coming back into the first round, well, they just dangle that thing out to try and get something better in 27 because those thirds are where the meat of the drafters. If you're looking for quality edge defenders, which is probably where he's going to be looking,

that's where the real value is in the draft class is having all those thirds. Yeah, I love that idea is either trading back this year or dangling it for a 2027 first where you're just betting against the team. Kind of like the Browns did, you know, in the last year's draft against the Jaguars, it didn't work out, but it was, it was just like a lottery ticket worth taking that, man, they could have ended up with two high picks,

and the dolphins could maybe trade a first to some team that is looking to move up, and that would make sense to me. In terms of Malik Willis, it does hurt me how high the difficulty mode is up on my guy here, because, you know, number one overall free agent, I'm, I'm rooting for him. I'm glad he's going to be making the dolphins more entertaining. I believe that'll be the case. Right now, his receivers are Chitue Atwell, Jalen Tolbert, and Malik Washington. Those are his top three. I mean, that's pretty rough. I don't know what my question is here. I don't believe the timeline, though. It doesn't make me rethink the will of signing because it was always a two-year deal. And I just think, I, QB shots are always worth taking. If there's a 10%

chance he's a franchise quarterback, it's worth taking. And if for some reason they draft Archie Manning with the first overall pick next year, it's fine. having Malik Willis there with him as the backup making $22 million. Like, I don't think that's a problem. No, I don't think that's a problem for the dolphins for Malik Willis. It's a bit of a shame that you kind of walk into an environment. They strip out the most favorable thing that you're walking into that environment for. I don't think it's kind of the offensive mind of the coach.

I don't think it's necessarily even the offensive line. There's some real good young talent there. I think throwing to Jalen Wall was probably one of the things that would get you over the line there. And it does force them into probably having to use one of these extra picks. on a receiver. If it's that 30th one, maybe it's more in the second round. Whereas before they could have just said, let's just build through the trenches, all the stuff they've signalled they want to do. So now you're kind of subbing out whether it's a second round pick. That will be compared to what the production and impact waddle could have had. They've kind of made it

where I think they're going to have to go early at that position just because the backup talent isn't on the level to have a fair evaluation of whether you've hit that 10% mark or not. You can't say, we want to find out this guy could be a stood in two seasons, but we're going to rip everything apart around him to not be able to have a fair. our evaluation. And I think his running is going to be a huge part of that with A-chan and how they build that. I mean, I'm sure Bobby Sloke's got this covered.

That is the one little fly in this process ointment is they have an offensive coordinator who basically flamed out in Houston and a defense first head coach. So we'll see. We'll see if that works out. Do you think tanking, like are they tanking? Do you think tanking exists in the NFL? I think it does exist in the NFL. I think teams, because of how quick they,

The turnover is now. Teams are smart to the fact that it's, I don't even think it's the best path in the NFL. I think teams are recognizing that. The dolphins of the team who did this most publicly and privately, I guess, they got hammered for some of the tanking and what it meant with Brian Flores. And it yielded absolutely nothing.

They were just as bad as they'd been every of the year before. I mean, it yielded a quarterback that they're paying $90 million on the cap over the next two years. That's what to not be on the team. That's what it yielded. It's just, I just don't believe it's the way to do things. People disagree with me. I understand it's access to quarterback

is the number one thing every team is looking for in the NFL and if you get up there early in the first round you have the cleanest shot at access to a quarterback. It's just not the NBA where you have a surefire thing where Victor when Binyama comes out in the draft you've got to throw your soul away to try and get the guy. It just doesn't work that way.

We see teams all the time, build from the middle, sustained from picking the 20s year after year after year. I think teams miss so often. There's so many moving pieces. You just want to go and find good players and hold on to them for as long as possible and assemble as many as you can in one go.

Yeah, there's so many moving pieces part is such a huge angle to it because, you know, I got some pushback on that. I don't really think tanking is a thing. Of course, the players and the coaches who are there are trying, but also there's just so many factors. And it's brought up, well, what about when, you know, they sat Max Crosby at the end of the year? I was like, yeah, first of all, he had a horrible knee condition that needed surgery. And if that's your best example, and there have been some, like sitting there a car. It's like, yeah, that's the last two or three games of the season. And you're taking out one player, which is still, even if it's a quarterback like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson a couple years ago,

it's reducing your chance to win that week by what, five, 10 percent you probably were going to lose anyways. You could still win the game. And you're already so deep into the season. It is not like planning your whole structure of a season around the tank like NBA teams do or starting to sit guys like midway through the season. It just doesn't work that way. And I think they do know that. I think obviously the coaches are going to do it. But they are kind of pressing pause and knowing that it's not all about this year, too.

Yeah, I do think the teams will, the final few weeks the season, make those calculations. Yes. And do it that way. I just don't think it's a good way of going about team building. It's more my argument. I think Tangi is an incorrect approach to the team building. I do think something tried to do it and throw away a couple of games to move up in the old.

That's so late. It's so late. And yet, but if you look at the teams who've done it recently, find me the great example of the team who's rebounded into being a perennial contender, having thrown a season away late. And it's usually the bad teams who stay bad. They have losing cultures. They accept losing and they stay bad. And that might be the old crotch-de-r-r-rah-rah coaching me. I think losing can be a disease and these teams stink and they accept losing. And those 76ers who started the whole shebang over in the NBA at a peak level developed the culture of losing and couldn't get out of it and had their style play just like asking you out

of seasons because you got used to being allowed to sit during games. I think that's a chronic problem. So if you throw seasons away, I think it's a complete nightmare. I understand the team late in the season, the final week of the season saying, let's just kind of mess with the draft door here and move up two spots if we can, why not? Right. And if you look at how the quarterbacks, the best one's been obtained lately anyways, the bears traded for it a year ahead, you know, that the Panthers traded up for Bryce Young. Obviously, that didn't work.

The commanders were not hoping to get that Jaden Daniels pick. Bubell Belichick was fighting tooth and nail to get to the nose. not collapse and it eventually allowed them to Drake, you know, get Drake May. So we'll see what happens with the dolphins. I do think, though, that they've made the right decisions overall. Like, it all makes sense to me. So if you're a dolphins fan out there, I get being optimistic. This is the easier part, but not every team does it to have a clear-eyed view of where your team is at and also take the pain of this year. They have $108 million in dead cap this year. That's somehow second in the league. The Saints are first. The Broncos are, no, the Browns are up there with 80. I was going to say,

I couldn't believe the Broncos would have been there. No, it is push time for the Broncos. They need to make a big move. I'm excited. Ollie, you're going to be back with us. Big week for Ali. You joined us on St. Patrick's Day. I don't know if you noticed, but I have a leprechaun, which I'm, you know, I don't know if this is racist or what the word is that I bought at the airport for my son on the way back from Dublin. It is in the background of our. YouTube show here today. As a proud Irishman, I allow you to... I was going to say,

to fly your leprick on flag as high as you want. Were you sleeping off a couple, you know, early beers or something before the show? No, that's the pre-gaming getting ready for what could wind up being a long night. Oh, okay. I'm feeling bad and I'm making you work,

but I'm glad we could fit this one in. Ali will be back with me later this week to do our NFC free agency great, but the Broncos are doing the damn thing, and they're making my guy in Malieuos's life a little harder. We will see you later in the week. Appreciate y'all. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I am Greg Rosenthal. I know that, Greg. We're teaming up on 40s and free agents, the podcast that owns the NFL offseason. This is where teams are built. Free agency, combine, pro days, trades. Every move matters. From my draft boards and mock drafts to my vaunted

top 101 free agents and how rosters come together. Quarterback movement. Surprise signings. We'll tell you what it means and who really wins. Open your free IHeart radio app. Search 40s and free agents and listen now. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.