The Denver Broncos found the missing piece on offense thanks to the Miami Dolphins. The team swung a major deal for Jaylen Waddle in a move that should put this unit over the edge. Outside of potentially adding a veteran running back to truly shore up the run game, this offense is in an exceptional spot right now.
But for this trade in particular, this deal did not happen overnight. The Broncos didn't just wake up and decide to make this move. In fact, this was something that begun months before the trade actually became official, and a recent bombshell report proves just how thorough this operation was.
Now that Waddle is on the Broncos, the team is obviously fully embracing this all-in window and want to maximize that with Bo Nix's rookie deal.
The Denver Broncos had Jaylen Waddle on their mind for months
Albert Breer really dove into pretty much the entire process the Broncos took to land Waddle, and it really goes to show you just how thorough this was from start to finish, and how long it took:
"The Jaylen Waddle trade may have seemed sudden, but the reality of it, for the Broncos, was anything but. Last year, on Halloween, the Dolphins fired longtime general manager Chris Grier, which started a months-long process of reimagining the organization. Predictably, contending teams started circling over their roster, looking to see what could be plucked from the remains of a regime on its way out, with a full reset coming but not fully executed.
That’s where Denver came in, looking to add to a team that coach Sean Payton and GM George Paton saw as ready to compete for the biggest prize. Waddle was their target, and while Payton and Paton didn’t get him, the seed was planted.
Paton’s staff was already doing background work on Waddle. Bo Nix told Paton that, in the 2019 Iron Bowl, Waddle put together one of the greatest individual games he’d ever seen, even as Nix’s Auburn team beat Waddle’s Alabama team 48–45. Safety Brandon Jones was a resource, too, having covered Waddle for three years in practice in Miami. And one of Paton’s scouts with a tight relationship with Nick Saban reached out, and Saban told him that Waddle was competitive, tough, sudden, and could drop his weight as fast as anyone he’d ever coached."
There's also a lot more in this report as well, but the Broncos checked in with the Dolphins on Waddle during the trade dealdine, but they weren't able to get anything done. And then, a bit earlier this offseason, the Broncos kicked this thing into high gear.
Not only did they finalize the proper trade parameters, which essentially equaled out to the Broncos giving up a pick 'worth' somewhere in the mid-20s, but the Broncos also sought out players and previous coaches about Waddle.
All of Nix, Patrick Surtain II, Brandon Jones, and the legendary Nick Saban were consulted to a degree about Waddle. It's clear that Waddle passed the Broncos 'background check' with flying colors, further reinforcing the idea that he was the right target on offense.
In five years spent with the Dolphins, Waddle had three 1,000-yard seasons and 5,039 yards in his NFL career thus far. He failed to hit the 1,000-yard mark in the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but the Dolphins had been dealing with subpar quarterback play during that stretch.
Waddle's skillset fits right into the Broncos receiver room, so both he and Courtland Sutton, to be honest, could both hit the 1,000-yard mark in 2026.