What Jaylen Waddle Brings to Denver Broncos Offense

New Denver Broncos receiver Jaylen Waddle is an elite deep threat, but he brings a lot more than that to the Mile High City.

Waddle knows how to win at all three levels of the football field, he can gain yards after the catch when led on passes over the middle, and can go up and get balls.

Plus, he's a team-first guy, which fits the Broncos carefully constructed locker room.

What Jaylen Waddle Brings to Denver Broncos Offense

Waddle is a playmaker in the short, intermediate, and especially the deep receiving game.

All-around, he's now the best receiver the Broncos have.

Last year, Waddle had a mediocre kind of season. He caught 64 passes for 910 yards and 6 touchdowns, all with Tua Tagovialoa as his quarterback. That was an issue because Tua threw wildly inconsistent at times, and at others completely missed Waddle by progressing through his reads too quickly.

Keep in mind that when he's used correctly, Waddle enjoyed three straight 1,000-yard seasons, including a 1,365-yard, 8-touchdown campaign in 2022.

Jaylen Waddle's 2025 stats

Last year, Waddle's 84.0 overall grade by Pro Football Focus was 10th-best. And his receiving grade (85.9) was 9th-best. By those metrics alone, he was a top-10 receiver.

In terms of simple stats, his receptions ranked 42nd, his yards were 25th-best, and he was 27th in TDs. Waddle was a first down machine last year, with 48 (18th), and he came in the top-10 in terms of first down percentage (48%).

And Waddle was 9th in EPA per route run.

Here's a quick look at a more of Waddle's 2025 stats:

• 16th in air yards per target (13.1 yards)
• 31st in air yards per reception (20.4 yards)
• 22nd in air yards conversion (52%)
• 20th among receivers in success rate (58.0%)
• 18th in broken tackles (4)
• 48th in YAC/reception (3.6)
• 37th in drop percentage (4.5%, 3 drops last year)
• 11th in 10-plus yard plays (43)
• 17th in 20-plus yard plays (14)
• 23rd in 30-plus yard plays (5)

He was better than Courtland Sutton in:

• Success rate (58%-54%)
• Broken tackles (4-3)
• YAC/reception (3.6-3.0)
• Drop percentage (4.5%-6.5%)
• 10-plus yard plays (43-41)
• Pro Football Focus Grade (84.0-73.8)

Deep passing

Waddle is a deep ball threat, and that's only part of his game. It's good to keep in mind here that Sutton was a great deep ball receiver last year. Both in terms of 20 and 30-plus yard receptions, as well as PFF grades.

So, Sutton is arguably still the better deep receiver compared to Waddle, but they are close. What it means is Denver just doubled their deep throwing capacity. Plus, that doesn't account for Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims' abilities to go deep, either.

Last year, James Palmer said an NFL defensive coordinator told him they're not worried about the Broncos throwing deep for two reasons. One, Bo Nix's lack of accuracy. He threw 40.3% of his deep balls off-target last year, which ranked 25th per Bill Barnwell.

Two, the Broncos didn't have a reliable deep threat that could run past defenders.

Waddle gives them that guy. He's going to keep defenses honest and make some explosive plays, too.

Waddle is a deep ball threat, and a reliable one at that. His 13.1 yards of average depth of target was more than any Broncos receivers. Troy Franklin (12.7) and Sutton (12.4) were the highest Broncos receivers on the list. Marvin Mims (9.9) and Pat Bryant (9) were farther down.

Plus, since he has to be respected, it will open up the underneath and intermediate passing game for other receivers like Bryant and Franklin, as well as tight end Evan Engram.

Crossing routes over the middle

The Broncos offense is anemic when it comes to throwing over the middle, between the hashmarks.

Not only that, but Bo Nix struggled greatly on all intermediate throws, especially in 2025 but in 2024, too. To wit, 13 of his 23 career interceptions have come on passes of 10-20 yards.

Waddle is the salve, though.

As multiple folks have pointed out, Waddle is a threat at all three depths. But one of his specialties is running slants and in routes over the middle of the field.

He uses blazing speed and quick hesitation moves to get open, and then he's able to run after the catch.

As we see in the chart below from Pro Football Focus, which breaks down Waddle's catches by depth and location on the field, he has 90-plus grades (out of 100) in seven of the 11 quadrants where he had a target. While he graded out at 90-plus in all deep areas, his highest grade by PFF was between the numbers at the 10-20-yard depth.

He received a 99.1 grade, had his most YAC of any quadrant (101 yards), and earned his quarterback a 115.1 passer rating.

Bill Barnwell talked about it in his column, too:

"One is on the crossing routes Payton wants Nix to throw off play-action. Nix was 20th in the league in EPA per dropback and 24th in success rate using play-action last season, per NFL Next Gen Stats. Waddle thrived running those routes with the Dolphins at the peak of the Mike McDaniel offense, creating quick completions for Tagovailoa and significant yards after catch."

The Broncos have avoided the middle of the field at that intermediate depth for the most part the last two years. In 2025, only 5.8% of Nix's passes went there. And his 65.5 passer rating was the second-lowest only to intermediate passes outside the numbers to the right.

Interestingly, Nix threw 9.7% of his passes between the numbers at that intermediate depth in his rookie year for a much better 95.4 passer rating.

So, there was a significant drop-off from Year 1 to Year 2.

At times last year Nix was progressing through his reads too quickly, so he may have missed some guys.

Whatever the reasoning, Waddle should help Nix and the offense exploit that important zone of the field more this season.

Waddle helps to beat zone defense

Speaking of zones, Bo Nix is a bad quarterback against the zone. While he was great against man defense in 2025.

According to Mina Kimes here, Nix was 3rd in QBR vs. man coverage. He was 21st vs. zone.

Meanwhile, Waddle was 5th in the NFL in receiving yards against zone coverage. And his 10.2 yards per target vs. zone is sixth in the NFL.

Waddle Could be the Key to Unlock the Broncos Offense

Last year, the Broncos receiver room was the worst in the NFL.

Don't get mad at me, Mike Clay of ESPN ranked them that way before the season. And who could blame him?

Sutton is a known quantity, but he's always been a fringe No. 1 guy. Behind him were the unproven youngsters Mims, Franklin, and then-rookie Bryant.

Another year under each one of their belts and the young receiver haven't progressed that much. Franklin took some steps forward, but he also had too many drops last year.

Moving Waddle into the No. 1 position, and moving Sutton to No. 2 gives Denver's receiver room an immediate upgrade. And if Franklin continues to improve, the Broncos could be one of the more dangerous receiver rooms in the league in 2026.

Plus, for a No. 1 receiver joining a new team, Waddle reportedly is a great locker room guy. And we know he's already great friends with Patrick Surtain from the time they spent together in Alabama from 2018-2020.

If Waddle can produce in the three mentioned ways from this article—deep passing, crossing routes, and beating zones—the Broncos offense will be much better than they were in 2026.

And Bo Nix will see a giant improvement in his numbers as well. Last year, the Broncos offense was 14th in scoring, 11th in passing yards, and 16th in passing touchdowns.

If they can get all three of those metrics into the top-10, while the defense continues to be great, Denver will be a legitimate contender for Super Bowl LXI all year long.

Denver Broncos Trade for Jaylen Waddle Proves They’re in Win-Now Mode

The Denver Broncos trade for Jaylen Waddle signifies the team isn’t looking toward the future, they’re in win-now mode. Denver wants to compete for a Super Bowl in 2026.

Broncos BlitzRich Kurtzman

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Rich Kurtzman was born and raised in Denver Colorado and attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins in the aughts. He's been a professional writer since 2011, covering Colorado State football and men's basketball, as well as the Denver Broncos, for many outlets. Current Denver Broncos work can be found on Mile High Sports. Previous credits include CBS Denver and The USA TODAY Sports Media Group.

Pro Football Reference Links

Jaylen Waddle, Bo Nix, Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin, Marvin Mims,