Let's Cut to the Chase: Still Waiting for Waddle Magic

Jaylen Waddle is racking up the catches early in his rookie season, but the big plays haven't come yet

The NFL announced its monthly awards for September on Thursday, and it was Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase who came away with Offensive Rookie of the Month honors.

And that, of course, is relevant to the Miami Dolphins because the former LSU standout was among the prospects linked to the team before the 2021 NFL draft and also because he was taken one spot before Miami selected fellow wide receiver Jaylen Waddle.

In Cincinnati's three September games, Chase had a modest 11 catches, but they were good for 220 yards (a tremendous 20-yard average) and four touchdowns.

Quite simply, Chase has had exactly the kind of impact you want — maybe even need — from a wide receiver taken that early in a draft.

It's the kind of impact that simply hasn't been there for Waddle, who was taken sixth overall in 2021 right after Chase.

Waddle had exactly double the number of Chase receptions in the Dolphins' first three outings, but those 22 catches were good for only 167 yards and one touchdown.

The 7.6 average was the lowest among NFL wide receivers with at least 15 catches in the first three weeks, and looked more like that of a possession receiver than a big-play offensive threat with game-breaking speed.

Waddle has a mere four catches longer than 10 yards on the season, but none since the Buffalo game. Not even during the Las Vegas game last Sunday when Waddle finished with 12 catches. But those 12 catches netted only 58 yards, which by now most fans know was the lowest total every for a wide receiver with that many receptions in a game, per pro-football-reference.com.

Let's be clear, the Dolphins didn't use the sixth pick in the draft on Waddle for him to become another Jarvis Landry — a great NFL wide receiver but a second-round pick for a reason.

That said, the low average says a lot more about the state of the Dolphins offense than it does anything about Waddle, though in a short-term view it's difficult to watch what's going on and not wonder whether the Dolphins would have been better off taking either Penei Sewell or Rashawn Slater with the sixth pick because the offensive line issues are preventing Waddle from being Waddle.

And when we remember that the Chargers took Slater with the 13th overall pick and he's been performing at a very high level from the very start of his NFL career, it becomes almost normal to again wonder whether the Dolphins would have been better off staying put at number 12 after making the trade down from third overall with the San Francisco 49ers that netted them extra first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 instead of giving up their own 2022 first-round selection to the Eagles to move back up to sixth to take Waddle.

Again, this is taking the short-term view in light of the Dolphins' offensive issues of the moment, issues that are keeping Waddle from producing what he was brought to do.

The Bengals obviously have fixed their offensive line issues enough to allow Joe Burrow to connect with Chase down the field and the hope is that it happens sooner rather than later for the Dolphins, and that Tua Tagovailoa and/or Jacoby Brissett then can start connecting with Waddle down the field 

And then we can really see why it was the Dolphins selected Waddle sixth overall.