Jaylen Waddle’s slow start with the Broncos has turned a high-profile offseason trade into an early-season question mark. Through five games, Waddle has caught just 18 of 26 targets for 204 yards and one touchdown, a 58-percent catch rate that is the worst of his career, according to Yahoo Sports. Denver sent multiple premium draft picks to acquire Waddle in the offseason, hoping he would elevate a passing attack that carried the team to the AFC championship game a year earlier. So far, the production has not matched the investment.
One Big Game Masking A Quiet Season
Strip away Waddle’s Week 2 outburst against Jacksonville, when he caught 8 of his targets for 138 yards, and the rest of his season looks thin. Over his other four games, Waddle has just 10 catches for 66 yards and one touchdown on 21 targets. That single performance accounts for 68% of his receiving yards on the season, according to Yahoo Sports.
He has been held to 35 yards or less in four of his five outings, per USA Today. For a receiver Denver gave up significant draft capital to land, that kind of week-to-week inconsistency has made him a tough player to rely on in the passing game.
Week 5 Showed The Problem Is Bigger Than One Player
Waddle’s quietest game came in Week 5 against Los Angeles, when he caught just 2 of 5 targets for 19 yards and added a 9-yard run, according to CBS Sports. But Waddle was not alone. Quarterback Bo Nix completed 27 passes for only 123 yards that day, a yards-per-completion figure barely above four and a half, which limited every skill-position player on the field.
Courtland Sutton was not targeted until the fourth quarter, and Denver converted just 1 of 12 third downs, per FOX Sports. When an offense cannot sustain drives, a receiver’s targets rarely turn into yards no matter how they are distributed.
Nix’s Regression Complicates The Picture
FOX Sports described Nix as playing more like the version of himself from early in his rookie season in 2024 than the quarterback who led Denver to the AFC title game in 2025. After the Week 5 loss, head coach Sean Payton told Nix to “let it rip” in his postgame news conference. Nix explained what that meant to him afterward.
“I think when a coach says ‘let it rip,’ it means trust what you see,” Nix said. “Right now, there’s just a little subtle piece of overall offensive execution that we’re still working towards, because at times, it’s there and we’re really good. At times, for whatever reason, the drive stalls.”
That description of stalled drives and inconsistent execution lines up with what Waddle’s numbers show: respectable target volume with poor conversion, a combination that points to an offense still searching for rhythm rather than a receiver who has lost his role.
The Counterpoint: Volume Is Still There
The strongest case against reading too much into Waddle’s slow start is that the targets have not dried up. Twenty-six targets in five games is a healthy workload, and his 8-catch, 138-yard Week 2 showed the ceiling is still there when the offense clicks. The issue, as Yahoo Sports framed it, is that Waddle has been missing in action for most of the season outside that one week despite Denver’s significant investment to acquire him.
The opportunity has been present. The results have not followed consistently.
What To Watch Next
Unless Waddle and Nix build better chemistry, Waddle projects to remain a risky receiving option on a week-to-week basis, according to USA Today’s assessment of his Week 5 performance. Denver’s offensive line and third-down execution, which produced just one conversion in 12 tries against Los Angeles, will also factor into whether Waddle sees more consistent volume in rhythm. The Broncos face Seattle in Week 6, their next opportunity to show whether the offense can sustain drives long enough to get Waddle more involved.
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