Fantasy Football 2025: WR Jaylen Waddle player profile

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• Jaylen Waddle appeared to be among the league’s best: Waddle’s 2.61 yards per route run from 2022 to 2023 was the third best among wide receivers, behind Tyreek Hill and Justin Jefferson, despite appearing on the injury report more often than not over those seasons.
• A sharp decline: Waddle consistently finished as a top-36 fantasy wide receiver in at least 70% of his games, until last season when that rate dropped to 26.7%.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.

Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Friday, May 23

Player performance

Waddle was the sixth overall pick of the 2021 draft. He immediately became the top wide receiver on a Dolphins depth chart that had DeVante Parker, Albert Wilson and Mack Hollins. His 7.0-yard average depth of target was the lowest of his career, leading to a low 9.8 yards per reception. He earned 104 receptions for 1,015 yards. He finished 15th in fantasy points per game.

The Dolphins made some major changes in 2022, including adding Mike McDaniel as head coach and trading for Tyreek Hill, which moved Waddle to the second wide receiver spot on the depth chart. Waddle only experienced a slight decrease in target rate, but his average depth of target jumped up to 12.2 yards. He remained great after the catch, leading to a high 18.1 yards per reception. He moved up to 13th in fantasy points per game, while Hill finished third.

In 2023, the Dolphins continued to have the entire passing game go through Hill and Waddle. In the past decade, there have only been three cases where a pair of players received over 50% of their team’s targets in back-to-back seasons, joining the Denver Broncos of 2015 and 2016 with Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders in addition to the 2022 and 2023 Philadelphia Eagles with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The Dolphins accomplished this despite Waddle missing three games. His target rate increased dramatically, but he was less effective on a per-reception basis. This led to fewer receiving yards but a better receiving grade.

Injuries started to become a problem for Waddle at the start of the 2022 season. He started the season in the injury report due to a quadricep injury, spent two weeks off the report and then spent nearly a month with a groin injury, over a month with a shoulder injury and a week with a fibula injury before he was listed again with a shoulder followed by an ankle to end the season. In 2023, it was an oblique, followed by a concussion, which cost him a game. He returned and was relatively healthy for a month but then dealt with back, knee and ankle injuries that cost him the final two games of the regular season.

Last season was the worst of Waddle’s career, but he was relatively healthy throughout. He caught five passes for 109 yards in Week 1. He averaged 32 yards per game over the following five games with Tua Tagovailoa out. He showed up on the injury report for a week due to a quadricep injury, but he still struggled for another month with 34 yards per game during a four-game stretch. He finally returned to form for three weeks, finishing with 21 receptions for 296 and a touchdown over three weeks. He suffered a knee injury in the following game, costing him two games, and then returned to a quiet game. While Waddle didn’t appear on the injury report nearly as much in 2024 as the previous two seasons, his NGS Tracking Data suggests his speed was slower last season compared to previous years.

Despite the injuries and low level of play last season, he’s still among the better receivers once the ball is in his hands. His 5.8 yards after the catch per catch over the last three years is second-best among all wide receivers. This has helped him gain at least 10 yards on 69.3% of his receptions, which is also the second-highest rate.

Projected role

Waddle has been the team’s X receiver by his pre-snap alignment, but his usage is different than most X receivers. His average depth of target has decreased each season, as has his deep target rate and, naturally, his contested target rate.

His primary competition for targets remains Tyreek Hill, although there have been trade rumors on and off throughout the season. Waddle is around the age when wide receivers peak, while Hill is around the age when wide receivers retire, so it’s possible that Waddle becomes the team’s target leader. The Dolphins have tried out several different wide receivers for the third, fourth and fifth spots on the depth chart during Mike McDaniel’s term. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine appears to be taking that third role this season, despite competition from Malik Washington. None of them will threaten Waddle’s target rate, and one will need to step up if Hill is traded.

The Dolphins added Jonnu Smith last season, leading to the Dolphins targeting tight ends 99 more times in 2024 than in 2023. De’Von Achane emerged as more of a receiver out of the backfield, leading to a few more targets to running backs compared to the previous year. This led to 85 fewer targets for wide receivers. It’s hard to tell how much of this Smith and Achane stepped up compared to how much Hill and Waddle had a down season. It will be difficult for Hill and Waddle to return to 2023 levels while Smith and Achane stay at 2024 levels because there are only so many touches to go around.

Impact of teammates

Waddle will continue catching passes from Tua Tagovailoa, as he has throughout his career, and will be entering his fourth season with Mike McDaniel as his head coach. Tagovailoa’s generally strong passing and low deep target rate have benefited Waddle. His ability to avoid sacks and scrambles has also helped Waddle and will continue to help all of the skill players in Miami.

McDaniel has a history of rotating his star wide receivers out more than most teams, which is why Waddle’s route snap percentage is relatively low compared to wide receivers of his caliber. That is unlikely to change anytime soon, especially with Hill and Waddle’s injury history.

Bottom line

Waddle is a top-10 fantasy wide receiver at his best, but he had a down season last year, and there is no clear reason why. It was probably the cumulative effect of injuries over several years. If that’s the case, maybe he’ll be back to normal next year, but it’s also possible he’ll never be back to being the same player.

Footnotes

• Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
• “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
• Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
• As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
• Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
• Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
• The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
• All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
• Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.

This news was originally published on this post .

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