Jaylen Waddle — Week 1: Three Targets, All on Third Down
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Tuesday, Sep 15
In his first game for Denver, Waddle was targeted three times, every one on third down, and caught one for two yards: two yards on third and four, incomplete on third and one before the half, incomplete on third and seven in the third quarter. None converted. Pat Bryant led the Broncos with six targets, in a 31–10 loss to the Chiefs.
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Seven to seven, four 56 left in the second quarter, third and one at the Denver 32. Bo Nix threw short right to Jaylen Waddle, incomplete, and Denver punted. −1.5 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and −2.7 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. A third and one, thrown rather than run, to the receiver Denver traded for in the spring.
The line: three targets, one catch, two yards, no first downs, −4.3 expected points on the targets. All three came on third down, and all three failed: two yards on third and four with 10 13 left in the half, which left Denver two short; the incompletion on third and one; and an incompletion on third and seven with 10 seven left in the third quarter, on the drive after Kansas City went up 21 to seven. Two targets before halftime, one after. The throws to him traveled 13 yards in the air across the three.
The split: Pat Bryant six targets, Courtland Sutton five, Evan Engram five, RJ Harvey four, Adam Trautman three, Waddle three, Troy Franklin one. 28 throws on the night, 19 pass plays before halftime and 13 after, against 12 designed runs. Denver's hundred 31 passing yards were the fewest of any team this week.
Back in June the preview held Waddle at watchlist — the 20-fourth receiver at pick 54, a hundred targets that did not convert in Miami, the market paying for the new situation rather than new proof — and named two things to watch: Bo Nix's health first, and then the target split with Sutton and Franklin, and whether the conversion finally caught up to the volume. Monday's split put him level with Adam Trautman for fifth on the team in targets, behind Pat Bryant, Sutton, Evan Engram and RJ Harvey, and the three he got were the hardest kind. One game in a new offense, in a game the offense as a whole produced the fewest yards in the league, settles nothing about a role. It is the first data point, and it is a low one. The Broncos are home to the Jaguars on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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