Good morning, Broncos Country!
Cue another Jaylen Waddle hype piece.
But, seriously, the new Denver Broncos wide receiver is by all accounts going nuts at OTAs. Waddle is consistently showing why Denver made the trade with the Miami Dolphins to get him on this offense.
From Thursday’s practice, Zac Stevens noted this from what stood out: Waddle caught a pass and exploded to the sideline to get out of bounds. His blazing speed allowed him to get there.
And this is without quarterback Bo Nix practicing yet. By the way, head coach Sean
Payton said he believes Nix will be “completely clean mobility-wise” going into Year 3.
“One of his great assets is his ability to avoid sacks and escape from the pocket,” Payton said to the media on Thursday. “And I don’t think you’ll see that hindered at all.”
But back to Waddle, his impact on the offense and the team is already being felt.
As offensive coordinator Davis Webb said to the media when asked about Waddle:
“He’s good. (Laughs). He’s a really good player.“
Webb then made an intriguing comparison to a certain quarterback in Buffalo entering his third year.
“There are some similarities,” he said to the media. “When I was with (Bills QB) Josh Allen going into Year 3, similar to Bo going into Year 3, and we traded for Stefon Diggs, and that was a good year. That was a good two-year run in ’20 and ’21 when I was together with them. Just seeing the growth from both players (at) that time, there’s some similarities of what started to happen here.
“It doesn’t mean it’s going to, we got a long way to go, but man, (Waddle’s) good. I’ve just enjoyed the person and just watching him work. He is a blessing to be around. He’s a multiplier. He’s a thermostat. Very, very good. That’s a credit to (Broncos GM) George (Paton). That’s a credit to Sean. We don’t bring in bad people here. We have really good players, and we have great team chemistry.”
On top of all of that, Waddle makes the other Broncos receivers better. That in turn makes the offense better, Nix better, and the team. But at this time of year, it makes the competition among the receivers better.
“I think it’s strong, and I don’t want to just talk about three, or five, or seven,” Payton said to the media. “When you add to a room like that with someone like Jaylen’s skill set, the level of competition and the results of all of them improve immensely. We’re kind of seeing that in practice. Those guys work together well.
“It’s exciting to see. It’s an area we felt like if we had an opportunity to address before the draft, fortunately we were able to. I’ve said this before: it was going to be difficult at our pick to find someone of that skill set. We feel fortunate it was able to get done.”
