Jaylen Waddle fantasy football insight from Hayden Winks - PPR Rankings

This will be a major Waddle bounce-back season after lots of unavoidable factors worked against him in Miami. As a rookie, Waddle caught 104 passes. That was his only season without Hall of Famer Tyreek Hill. That's the level of schemed-up upside his talent profile contains. Unfortunately, his 2022-25 era was very up-and-down. There were 16 useless games (WR67 on average) without Tua Tagovailoa playing. But! In games with Tua on the field, Waddle was the WR16 per game in full PPR, all while Tyreek was the WR3 overall ahead of him. There's no question that Waddle is now the No. 1 receiver on his offense after the Broncos traded a fringe 1st-round pick for him this offseason. In those Tua games, Waddle was leading all WRs in EPA per target. He's very good when he's actually involved, and there's no excuses to not be heavily involved now. Only 7% of Waddle's targets during that 2022-25 span were screens, too. Coach Sean Payton's offenses are very quick-hitting and manufactured, to the point where with Bo Nix over the past two seasons, the Broncos are 1st in screens (161). Both Marvin Mims and Troy Franklin have averaged 1+ screens per game across those recent seasons. They will kick rocks now. Many of those should go to Waddle. For reference, Courtland Sutton was the WR23 per game over the past two seasons without being involved in the screen game and during the rookie and sophomore seasons of Bo Nix.