The Broncos spent Week 1 trying to find Jaylen Waddle. In Week 2, they put him to work.
After barely showing up in the passing game during the loss in Kansas City, Waddle turned into Denver’s most dangerous weapon against the Jacksonville Jaguars, finishing with eight catches for 138 yards. The Broncos moved him around constantly, using quick screens early, then expanding his role into a true multi-layered threat. He was part of the quick game, he was targeted downfield, and he even served as a decoy on a double reverse to Pat Bryant that picked up a solid gain.
The turning point came in the second quarter, right after Jacksonville had scored a touchdown on the previous possession. Denver answered with a deep shot to Waddle, who came down with a contested grab that set the offense up at the 1-yard line.
On the play, Denver motions Courtland Sutton over to the left side with Waddle, a move that helps reveal the Jaguars’ coverage. The Broncos are working a variation of “Dagger,” with the inside receiver running a post and the outside receiver breaking on a deep Dig route. Jacksonville is in Cover 4, and the concept is built to attack that look.
Sutton settles into the void and pulls the deep safety toward the middle of the field, which opens the lane for Waddle to release cleanly and win inside. On the far side, Pat Bryant holds the safety with a hitch route.
Bo Nix, rolling right on a designed move, has pressure coming through the middle and has to deliver on the move. It’s a sharp throw and an even better catch, even though Denver later stalled and settled for three points.
Waddle kept giving the Jaguars problems whenever they tried to leave him in space. Later in the second quarter, Denver stacked him behind Bryant on the left side and got man coverage across the board. The Broncos called a switch release with Waddle running a crossing route, and Jaguars cornerback Jarrian Jones, aligned eight yards off the ball, had no shot at catching him.
That rep also showed something else: Waddle’s pacing. He doesn’t hit top speed immediately.
He builds into the route and only really opens up as he flattens across the field, which creates even more separation than the formation already gives him. That kind of detail matters, especially for a quarterback like Nix, who started showing more trust in Waddle as a middle-of-the-field target.
That trust showed up again after Riley Moss’s interception in the third quarter, when Denver was trying to tie the game at 13 on a critical 3rd-and-7. The Broncos moved Waddle into the slot with short motion to help sort out the coverage, and Jacksonville showed pressure with linebacker Branson Combs and safety Antonio Johnson on the line of scrimmage.
At the snap, Combs drops into the hook zone of a Cover 3 look, but Waddle is already gone. He gets a free release and runs a 12-yard in-breaking route, reaching the window before Combs can recover. Nix hits his back foot and fires into the open space, trusting Waddle to be there.
There was one more big Waddle play that bookended the night. Early in the game, Denver motioned him across the formation against Jourdan Lewis in man coverage.
Waddle ran past Lewis on a go route, and Lewis had to grab his jersey to slow him down. No flag came out, even though it looked like defensive pass interference.
Late in the game, with Denver in a four-minute drill, the Broncos went right back to that matchup. This time Waddle added a stutter-and-go, got Lewis to bite, and created another explosive play to keep the drive moving.
The throw was underthrown as Nix rolled right, but the Broncos didn’t need perfection there. They needed the completion, the clock to keep running, and the drive to stay alive. A touchdown would have been nice, but the bigger prize was denying Jacksonville the ball back with about three minutes left and a chance to tie the game.
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