The Denver Broncos didn't tell Bo Nix or their wide receivers about the Waddle deal, but Miami took a different path.
It’s always intriguing to see who gets notified in advance about a big trade in the NFL, and the big trade for receiver Jaylen Waddle is revealing a host of machinations and non-moves by both the Denver Broncos and the Miami Dolphins.
The latest report about all this comes from Sam Robinson of ProFootballRumors.com, who did a deeper dive on the Dolphins side, which was very different from the Broncos. Miami didn’t inform new starting quarterback Malik Willis of the trade, but he did receive what Robinson called “advanced notice” from new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan.
“I’m not going to ever make it a habit to call and feel like I need to explain myself to players in the locker room for the moves that I’m going to make. That’s not how this position works,” Sullivan said, via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “I think they would respect me less if I did. I’m going to do what I think is right for the Miami Dolphins, not what a player or players want me to do.”
This contrasts somewhat compared to how the Broncos handled this, as neither coach Sean Payton or GM George Paton notified quarterback Bo Nix about the Waddle deal. This is standard business for the most part, but sometimes teams will give veteran QBs on big deals when they represent a big franchise shift, and temperamental quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens tend to require more hand-holding with this sort of thing.
The possible controversy with the Broncos is whether Payton or Paton notified the rest of the receivers given the dramatic change that comes with adding Waddle, but that doesn’t appear to be the cases so far. The only receiver who’s spoken out about his in a neutral was was Marvin Mims Jr., otherwise everything that’s been coming out of Broncos camp has basically been happy talk.
These are two teams that do business in very different ways, which is one of the things that made this trade so surprising. The Broncos appeared ready to stay the course with their strategy of resigning nearly everyone they could fit under the cap, but Payton suddenly pivoted and decided to go in the opposite direction with a big trade.
We haven’t heard the last of this from either side, however. There’s really no way to start to know the full implications of the Waddle deal until after the draft, and the Broncos don’t have much capital or cap space to address a couple of significant needs.