Transcription
Jaylen Wadd is a Denver Bronco. Yes, that just happened. Denver, in this trade, receives Jaylen Wadd and a fourth-round pick. Meanwhile, the Miami Dolphins get Denver's first-round pick, 30th overall, along with a late third and fourth-round selection. There's tons to get into here. Uh, this is a Broncos team, Aiden, that was, let's say, a quarterback injury away from a possible Super Bowl birth. Yep.
What does Jaylen Wadd bring to this Broncos team? Just an upgrade for whatever they were trying to do with Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin and Evan Ingram and the running backs. Like, they have actual juice who can be a team's wide receiver one. I like Courtland Sutton a lot. I really like him as kind of a ball-winner number two. And I think that now the pecking order has completely changed for them. And pretty much the entire offseason was about resigning this AFC Championship team. They let John Franklin Myers go, and in comes Jaylen Wadd. The rest of the roster is literally the exact same. And I can make an argument that the juice that Waddle brings is going to be more important than the defensive tackle. So, I think you can make an argument the Broncos have the best roster in the AFC.
Going through these mock drafts that we've been posting here on the channel and then going through the depth charts for each of these teams. You know, there's yellow and orange and green across the board for every other organization except for this Broncos team. And you know, when we got up to the 30th overall selection, we were kind of racking our brains trying to figure out who to give this Broncos. I mean, at some point, we gave them Eli Sterling just because, hey, Sean Payton might be able to figure out that puzzle piece. Yeah.
Because you looked at it, Hayden, and even their first-round pick last year, and Ja'Ayir Brown, like wasn't a full-time player, wasn't a full-time starter. So, it would be tough to find, you know, another young player that can immediately come in and produce. And for that reason, they bring Jaylen Wadd into this equation. And from the surface, and look, the Broncos offense is more complicated than this. And you know, Davis Webb is now, we believe, the play-caller on every single down of the Broncos this season. But more than other teams, they do previously like to, you know, throw underneath passes, lots of screens, and then when that forces a defense to play and press up a bit more, then we launch these moonshots over the top, these scripted plays.
Does Jaylen Wadd fit into that equation? Hell yeah. I mean, perfect. Like I thought the rollouts that we've seen Bo Nix do, like you can just see the big crosser down the field that's going to be now 4-3 Jaylen Wadd on top of it. He just plays the ball way better than Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims. He's a better route runner. He's just better across the board, and they're not going to be as reliant on like the Evan Engrams in the schemed-up department. So, you're still going to have Pat Surtain, the third-rounder from last year, as like kind of like a big slot type in three-wide receiver sets. But in two-wide receiver sets, which they definitely are going to have because they have fullbacks and two tight ends and whatever, I do think that Jaylen Wadd is going to be a way better compliment to Courtland Sutton than having another big body out there because you want Nix to have a huge, huge, huge arm, like throws the ball 65 yards down the football field. Having some speed and a guy that's actually not like 160 pounds is going to be a real asset.
We're definitely going to talk about the Dolphins end of this equation at the end of this video. There's more to hit on here with the Broncos and specifically Jaylen Wadd, who again, coming out of Alabama, had that foot injury. Didn't have, you know, a full scope of exactly who he was going to be in the NFL. Then with the Dolphins, mainly gets paired with Tyreek Hill, who's going to be the alpha of that passing attack. There were other times where, you know, Tyreek Hill missed games for one reason or another, and Jaylen Wadd could theoretically be that team's wide receiver one. I'll say it, I don't know if I saw a stretch of four or five contests where I considered him like a quote-unquote wide receiver one on an NFL team. And then obviously, when you take a guy who is that talented, we can all see it with our eyes, and he gets to a second contract, you have to pay him, right? And that's what the Dolphins previously did. And he was up to about wide receiver 10 or wide receiver 11 in AAV. And again, I will say that I'm not sure if I saw top 10 wide receiver skills on a consistent basis for Jaylen Wadd. At the same time, that was in a Mike McDaniel offense, which is a positive, but attached to someone like Tua Tagovailoa or Skyler Thompson or Tyler Huntley or all these guys. So, this is a new system, a new environment, and a totally new coaching staff, and also like complimentary pieces for him where he has almost a singular skill tree and where he wins and where he's effective in terms of the routes and the yards after the catch versus basically the other two towers of the Pat Surtain, especially Courtland side. I'm really hopeful that Wadd is going to have like more downfield opportunities because back in 2022, his second season, he averaged 18 yards per catch, and that was like more of the downfield version of that Dolphins offense. And then the last couple years, it's been 14, 12, 14 yards per catch. I'm hoping that with Bo Nix and some of these shot plays that we talk about with Sean Payton, we're going to see like more explosiveness out of Wadd. He's not like the number one Michael Thomas front of this offense. Like, we're not, no one's expecting that. I would also not be surprised if his numbers this next year is back to 1,100, 1,200 yards somewhere in that range. And I would make him the number one in statistics over Courtland Sutton if I was doing projections for this upcoming season. But I think more importantly than his own numbers, I just think that the Broncos, like this is just an elevated person for their entire roster. I think this is going to be extremely helpful for the Broncos more so than like for fantasy purposes.
Yeah, and this is their window to win. Like they have a quarterback on a rookie contract. All their veterans are kind of hitting their peak at the right time when we're talking about an offense, Courtland Sutton, on defense, someone like Zach Allen, for example, and Patrick Surtain, and all these players. And so, this is your window to win. Like, could you theoretically draft a wide receiver or a pass catcher or someone else at pick 30 that could contribute not just this year but well into the future? Yes. But we just saw them make a huge run into the AFC playoffs last year and probably were going to be favorites to go into the Super Bowl. Who knew what the weather would throw in there? And then you have the fluke ankle-foot injury there for for Nix. Just one more thought here on Jaylen Wadd, the individual. Again, he is obviously a good player. I just wonder like what the difference is between good to great to elite and kind of where he fits on that spectrum. But last season, eighth in first downs per route run, 12th in yards per route run, 11th in successful targets per route. And that was a lot of man coverage that he faces, too. And so it's never, never a bad idea to have someone that can win in isolation in one-on-one matchups. So I think you and I are in agreement here of what the kind of wide receiver trio is going to be. And then I also wonder if maybe there is a secondary outcome of someone like a Marvin Mims or a Troy Franklin gets moved here in the near future for obviously much less draft capital.
Yeah, they have a lot of guys all of a sudden. You know, Lil' Jordan Humphrey is going to get his snaps because they absolutely adore him. So I would not be surprised if Franklin or I think maybe more likely Marvin Mims gets moved. So, I mean, the Dolphins could use somebody like that, that's for sure. Let's talk about the opposite end of this because the Miami Dolphins right now have a ton of draft picks. The Miami Dolphins need those draft picks. I am not sure if I have seen a wide receiver room quite like this heading into, let's say, the middle of March. It is 2 T2 Atwell, Jaylen Tolbert, Malik Washington, Terrace Marshall, Théo Whis, Taj Washington, and AJ Henning. That's the wide receiver room. It's basically complimentary to what their quarterback room looked like headed into last season.
Yeah, they still got Storm Duck on the other side of the ball. That's like the key part. Their defense is equally as bad as their offense, you know? It's like this is a full-blown tank job. I actually don't even hate this move for the Dolphins, like team-building purposes. They have a bunch of top 100 picks in this draft. Obviously, next year's draft's going to be more important looking for the quarterback of the future. But they got like legit draft capital back for Jaylen Wadd. Jaylen Wadd is 28, so he's like firmly in the prime of his career. But this Dolphins team is so many years away that I do think getting younger and hoping to hit on those increases your odds of eventually turning this into a high-quality program. Now, for Malik Willis, you got to feel really, really bad about what happened. I really hope that they told him that this was the plan. So, I feel bad for Malik Willis, but for the Dolphin side in general, I like just like tearing it down, just like full yolo. Like, this is just, this year is going to suck, and we have to build for the future. I do think this is the best path for them.
Two notes there. First one, I believe the Dolphins now have eight picks inside of the top five rounds. That includes picks 11, 30, 43, 75, 87, 90, 94, 130, and 151. So that's one way to restart this. The other is we already knew about the, you know, NFL record amount of dead money on Tua. Now we're adding some here with Jaylen Wadd. Uh, the opposite is what you just said. Are the timelines of the Dolphins and Malik Willis here on separate universes because Malik Willis probably had some other suitors in free agency. Chose the Dolphins probably for good reason. Had some relationships with, you know, the back room staff and the coaching staff. But he has to play well this year. You know, has to play well this year. It is going to be difficult to play well this year with the surrounding cast that is, you know, around him other than De'Von Achane. And if he doesn't do that, then it's a Justin Fields, we can move on from him if we want to.
Yeah, that's exactly right. So, I wonder how much the Cardinals were offering him, if the Jets were giving him money too. Obviously, he probably picked the team that's paying him the most, which like, that's awesome for him. But he's got one year to prove it. And the guy he's throwing the ball to, it's going to be hard to prove it in these situations. Now, he might rush for over a thousand yards. Like, we don't say that every season. It can absolutely happen here. He's going to probably throw the ball to De'Von Achane a million times, though. De'Von Achane. Why couldn't he get traded at some point now? Like, what's the same argument for Jaylen Wadd? Why not do it with De'Von Achane? Um, but yeah, your point is, I completely agree with it. It could be Arch Manning at first overall. And even if Malik Willis was like showing some flashes, if you're going to have the younger option who's a lot cheaper, you're going to go down that path. So, a lot of pressure on Malik Willis to make, you know, something out of absolutely nothing. So, if they didn't tell him about this, I definitely would feel bad for him.
The other layer of this is we've seen two wide receivers at the very least be traded this offseason. DJ Moore for a second-round pick. Now, we've seen Jaylen Wadd for a first and a third and basically swap fourths there. What is the valuation for A.J. Brown at some point over the next few weeks or months?
I would probably view Waddle and A.J. Brown about the same. I'm a little bit nervous that A.J. Brown's kind of declining a little bit, and he's got a pretty big injury history. And then I think Waddle's like still more or less like a top 20ish wide receiver. So, I think the price tags would be roughly the same. There's like some really weird cap things that the Eagles are still trying to figure out with the A.J. Brown contract. I am curious to see if the Broncos are going to do what the Bills did, which was after trading for DJ Moore, like giving him a bunch of guaranteed money well into the future. We'll see if the Broncos do that. So, compared to the DJ Moore trade, I would way, way rather be the Jaylen Wadd side of this than the DJ Moore side, especially if they don't adjust his contract.
All right, I think that does it. I also will have my eye on maybe next offseason to see if this is kind of the beginning of the end for someone like Courtland Sutton on this team. If they can give this massive of a deal along with Sutton, and at that point, the guaranteed money starts to wane a little bit in Sutton's contract. And that probably depends on, you know, how well someone like Pat Surtain does this year. And you and I, the only video out in the interwebs prior to Pat Surtain getting drafted last year much higher than people anticipated, had some ups and downs and some injuries he overcame, but it certainly felt like, and this is kind of against, I'm not saying totally against Sean Payton and what he has done in his past with New Orleans, but in Denver, all he has talked about is size at the wide receiver spot, size at the wide receiver spot. But we also know that the dude loves to manufacture touches to certain players. And doing that to Jaylen Wadd, even if Davis Webb is the one calling plays, which maybe there's some new layers to this thing, too, is going to be really, really fun and very electric. And so, I'm assuming you're saying that the Broncos are favorites for the AFC at this point.
I think I would make him that, just the Mahomes injury, the Josh Allen obviously would be threatening, but the AFC is up for grabs. I think that this roster, like just like one to 30, is pretty damn stacked.
So, possibly. Did we just see a trade go down between the team that wins the Super Bowl and the team that had the number one overall pick? Yeah, that would be fascinating. I mean, we should applaud trades like this. Let's get the good players on good teams. I think it's better for everybody.
That does it. Thank you all for watching. We actually are starting our prospect series this week. So, all you Dolphins fans, I'm sure you want to take, you know, two or three wide receivers. Omar Cooper. Yeah. Look up Omar Cooper. Uh, maybe not Denzel Boston, maybe Jeremy Bernard, you know. Yeah. So, be sure to hit that subscribe button, lock in, and watch a few of those after.