On Tuesday morning, 61 eighth graders scampered through the halls of Jaylen Waddle’s old stomping grounds in Bellaire, Texas. This was prospective-student visit day at Episcopal High. And for 20 minutes, it was athletic director Jason Grove’s job to try to sell the skittish attention of these tweens on the Knights’ athletic programs.
So Grove bragged. He bragged about alumni like offensive lineman Donovan Jackson, a first-round pick by the Minnesota Vikings in 2025. He bragged about alumni like Jaguars offensive lineman Walker Little, and former Eagles defensive tackle Marvin Wilson. And most of all, he bragged about Waddle.
Eventually, Grove asked for questions. One kid’s hand went up.
“Is it true,” this eighth-grader asked, right off the bat, “that Jaylen Waddle was just traded?”
For the rest of the morning, a Houston-suburb high school campus of about 800 students became obsessed with the Denver Broncos. Partly because this was a group of 16-to-18-year-old kids, after all, in a football-obsessed state. Partly because Waddle’s former high school coach, Steve Leisz, blasted out word of Waddle’s trade to Denver to about “500 of my closest friends on campus,” as Leisz said. But mostly because Waddle, now a 27-year-old star NFL wide receiver, still magnetizes eyeballs whenever he sidles back through Bellaire.
In the early lunch window on Tuesday, Episcopal teachers and students buzzed amongst themselves about the Waddle trade. One sophomore came up to Grove in the cafeteria, grabbed the athletic director’s shoulders, and gloated.
“Did you see it?” the kid said, as Grove recalled. “Did you see it? Jay’s got a quarterback that’s going to get him the ball.”
Jaylen Waddle of Miami Dolphins (#17) runs with the ball under pressure from Jeremy Reaves of Washington Commanders (#39) during the NFL 2025 game between Washington Commanders and Miami Dolphins at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on Nov. 16, 2025 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)
The people who best know who Jaylen Waddle can be as a Denver Bronco live here in Bellaire, Texas. Episcopal offensive coordinator Kary Kemble once remarked that this 5-foot-nothing receiver with Houdini-level escapeability was “magic,” and it stuck. To this day, the football staff still calls Waddle “Magic” whenever he comes through town. He has been anointed for no-doubt stardom since the Army All-American Bowl in 2018, when Waddle first crossed paths with Pat Surtain II.
And then Surtain II anointed Waddle himself, as the two became best friends and ringleaders of another wave of NFL talent at Alabama.
“If you got a pot, tin pots of characteristics — their pot is the elite,” said Karl Scott, who was Alabama’s cornerbacks coach from 2018 to 2020. “It is very few people in that pot. And I think, as they got to that pot and looked around, it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re here. And you’re here. All right.’ That’s almost how I envision it.”
A few years into their NFL journeys, though, Surtain’s pot shrank and Waddle’s widened. After three straight 1,000-yard seasons with the Dolphins, Waddle’s ball production dipped sharply during two losing seasons in Miami in 2024 and 2025. Starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa played in 25 of 34 regular-season games. The Dolphins finished with the league’s 25th-best passing offense in 2025, and defenses keyed in more on Waddle after top WR Tyreek Hill’s season-ending injury. Miami fired general manager Chris Grier in October, fired head coach Mike McDaniel in January, cut Hill and Tagovailoa in February and March, and capped off a full-scale rebuild by trading Waddle to the Broncos this week.
On a conference call with local reporters Wednesday, Waddle shrugged off any notion that he views the move to Denver as a chance to recapture early-career momentum, simply saying the trade brings “new beginnings.”
“I just look at it as — a new opportunity to go out there with a new team in a great place, and play alongside great talent, and try to help out as best I can,” Waddle said.
Privately, though, those who’ve helped write Waddle’s story — from the Houston suburbs to the Rocky Mountains, now — see the Broncos’ all-in swing for Waddle as a spark to re-ignite his stardom.
To become Magic, again.
Georgia defensive back Richard LeCounte (2) misses the tackle on Alabama wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) during the second half of the Southeastern Conference championship game, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, in Atlanta. Waddle scored a touchdown on the play. (AP Photo/John Amis)
The prince of Bellaire
Everybody in Houston, Texas, knew him. They still do. Waddle is a diminutive deity in Texas, where whispers of his spirit twist across baseball diamonds and basketball courts and football fields from Bellaire to the Woodlands to Dallas. Late in one junior-varsity game during his freshman season at Episcopal, Waddle lined up with the clock ticking away on a potential comeback win.
The other team, Episcopal staffers remember, put five defenders on Waddle. He caught a goal-line touchdown anyway.
“That’s when the first few moments of like, the mystique — the legend of Jaylen Waddle — was beginning to grow,” Grove said.
In Waddle’s freshman year, Leisz put Waddle out for his first varsity snap on the return team for a playoff game against St. Mark’s High in Dallas. St. Mark’s kicked to him. Waddle took it 75 yards to the house.
In Waddle’s sophomore year, Episcopal’s basketball team played St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, a program from Austin. St. Stephen’s had budding 7-footer Jarrett Allen, a now All-Star center with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Episcopal had 5-foot-10 Waddle. He went up off a rebound during one fast break, Grove remembers, and dunked on Allen.
In Waddle’s junior year, he took a punt return and put his foot in the ground. Two gunners dove at him. Waddle accelerated. He slipped through so quickly, Leisz remembers, that the two would-be tacklers hit their heads on each other.
In Waddle’s senior year, Episcopal lost its quarterback for a game due to injury. Leisz put Waddle behind center, so he could touch the ball off the snap. He scored six touchdowns.
“He could get himself out of a fix, he could get himself out of a jam, he could get himself out of trouble,” said Kemble, Episcopal’s offensive coordinator. “It wasn’t coached. We didn’t coach that. He was God-given talent.”
Getting Waddle to this point was one thing. He grew up in Acre Homes, a majority-Black neighborhood in the Houston suburbs with a median household income of about $36,000 in 2019, according to the city of Houston. Waddle’s mother, Ishea Cotton — his “rock,” as Grove said — pushed to get Waddle into Episcopal, a majority-white collegiate preparatory school that has 600-plus applicants for roughly 200 spots in any given school year. Waddle didn’t want to be there his first week, as he once recalled to Leisz. He came around quickly.
From there, most everything ended up easy, even when the situation was hard. While recruiting Waddle to Alabama, legendary ex-HC Nick Saban told him there would be no guarantees; the Crimson Tide already had future first-round draft picks Jerry Jeudy, DeVonta Smith and Henry Ruggs III in the room, after all. The best players played, Saban told Waddle. So Saban asked him: Are you the best player?
“Without a doubt,” Waddle responded instantly, as Leisz remembered.
He went for 848 yards as a true freshman, led the country in punt-return yards as a sophomore, and led the SEC in yards per catch as a junior. After the Dolphins drafted Waddle at No. 6 overall in 2021, he broke the NFL rookie record for catches (104), then went for 1,356 yards in his second season. His legacy became larger than life in his hometown before his life had even truly begun. Waddle left a heap of tickets for Episcopal staffers for a Dolphins-Texans joint training-camp practice in Houston in 2023, and teachers and alumni filled the stands at NRG Stadium in 2024 when Miami came back to town.
But those from back home, where memories of Magic still sit fresh on the tip of tongues, sense there could be more. Waddle ranked 38th in the NFL in targets last year in Miami, and tied for 60th the year before.
“Jaylen certainly has always brought incredible pride to all of us here at Episcopal High School — brought honor back to us,” Grove said. “But we’re always – we’re kinda waiting for him to take another step.
“Because we all know that he’s capable, of doing it.”
aylen Waddle of the Miami Dolphins reacts during the second quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at Hard Rock Stadium on December 21, 2025 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Teammates once again
In Denver, now, Waddle will be pushed daily by a cornerback who’s become family. And Waddle will push right back, just as he’s done for years, on Pat Surtain.
“Pat is not really much of a talker,” said Mike Weber, Surtain’s cousin and a longtime mutual friend. “But if anybody does get him to talk, or talk (expletive) on the field when they go up, it’s definitely Jaylen.”
In the summer of 2018, early in the first padded scrimmage of their freshman years at Alabama, Surtain (running with the 1s) matched up with Waddle (running with the 2s) in the slot. Man-to-man. And Waddle torched Surtain. Veterans on the starting defense grumbled.
Pat Surtain II (2) of the Denver Broncos breaks up a pass intended for Kayshon Boutte (9) of the New England Patriots during the second quarter at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Safety Xavier McKinney, then a sophomore, came to secondary-coach Scott and told him they needed to get it right. The implication was obvious. So Scott caught Surtain coming off the field, worried he’d lose the kid mentally if he didn’t check on him.
“Pat, you good?” Scott asked.
Surtain’s eyes, Scott remembered, were somewhere else. Then he snapped to. He turned back to Scott with a strange look.
“Yeah,” Surtain scoffed, as Scott recalled. “What, am I not supposed to be good?”
He was competing against himself, Scott realized. So was Waddle. The two soon began competing with each other, and became Frick and Frack off the field, as Scott said. They moved into an apartment together eventually at Alabama, and Waddle would occasionally come back with Surtain to his family’s house in South Florida during season breaks. The Surtains had a basketball hoop in their backyard, and cornerback and receiver would wage war there, too.
The two would stagger back into the house, sweaty, looking a mess and talking a mess, too.
“It’s just, in them,” Surtain Sr. told The Post.
Their families sat next to each other in the green room in 2021’s draft; Waddle hugged Surtain’s parents when he went at pick No. 6 to Miami, and Surtain hugged Waddle’s parents when he went at pick No. 9 to Denver. They trained together for their first few offseasons in the NFL. And they hatched ideas, early in their careers, of playing with each other one day.
It nearly became a reality at the 2025 trade deadline. Denver didn’t pull the trigger on Miami’s asking price for Waddle at the time. But the possibility of the receiver coming to Denver was “known for a while,” as one team source told The Post. And felt, certainly, by Surtain.
“When Tyreek was let go and then Tua was let go,” Surtain Sr. told The Post, “you kinda felt that the Dolphins were going in a different direction. They wanted to start anew. And the conversation would come up between us — me and Pat — about them getting Jay. And then Pat would say he’s talked to people about it, but that nothing’s come to fruition.”
Waddle knew it was a possibility, too. He never made a public fuss across two dysfunctional years in Miami, as Hill dominated negative headlines and the Dolphins entered a downward spiral. Privately, though — as Waddle caught passes from five different starting quarterbacks in 2024 and 2025 — the situation was “definitely frustrating” for the receiver, as Weber said.
The Dolphins entered a new era last week, signing former backup QB Malik Willis to a three-year contract. Waddle would’ve been perfectly OK with Willis throwing him the ball in Miami, Weber said.
“But I know if he had it his way, he would rather be in Denver,” Weber said. “And it worked out.”
Indeed, the Broncos pushed their chips in last week and gambled a true haul: a late first-round (No. 30), third-round (No. 94) and fourth-round pick (No. 130) for Waddle and a fourth-rounder (No. 111). General manager George Paton called Waddle on Tuesday to deliver the news that he was coming to Denver. Waddle’s mother Ishea excitedly told Leisz she was going to have to get a new set of gear. Weber, who lives in Denver and does marketing work for both Waddle and Surtain, practically jumped for joy at the news.
“I already knew it was coming, just speaking it into existence,” Weber said. “It’s been about a year that we’ve been pounding the table, on this.”
The trade was a “total win,” Leisz said, knowing Waddle would be reunited with a blood brother in Surtain. And sparks will fly come training camp, as iron sharpens iron.
“Jaylen is very quiet off the field,” Leisz said. “And on the field? He is not quiet.
“So I can only imagine that first practice, when those two line up with each other — you’ll probably hear it in the stands.”
Jaylen Waddle of the Alabama Crimson Tide runs on his way to scoring a 51-yard touchdown in the third quarter against the Georgia Bulldogs during the 2018 SEC Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 1, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
‘A competitive son of a gun’
Saban, the one-time legendary Alabama figurehead, has never been one to wrestle with decisions. But Waddle’s situation, in January 2021, stumped him.
Three months earlier, as Waddle was streaking towards an All-American campaign in his junior year, the receiver broke his ankle on the opening kickoff of an October game against Tennessee. He was initially thought out for the season. But Waddle rehabbed aggressively enough for a return date around the Crimson Tide’s national-championship matchup with Ohio State Jan. 11 — as he was also headed for a top-of-first-round selection in the draft. It left Saban wondering if he should play him.
“I’ll never forget, in the staff meeting, Saban kinda opened it up,” Scott recalled. “Like, ‘What do you guys think? Because I don’t know. I don’t know.’”
Eventually, Saban decided to just ask Waddle. Doctors told the receiver it would hurt, but he could play, as Leisz recalled. So Waddle played.
He caught three passes on a less-than-100% ankle, and Alabama won a national title.
“He was a competitive son of a gun, man,” Scott said. “He might be all of 5-foot-10 right now. But inside of him, man, it was like he was 6-foot-10.”
The Waddle trade is quite literally unprecedented in Broncos head coach Sean Payton’s career. In 18 seasons as an NFL head coach, Payton’s organizations only ever swung a trade for one previous wide receiver: Bethel Johnson in 2006, who Payton promptly cut before the season began. The Broncos head coach has a particular type of receiver — big — and has generally maneuvered his teams to draft and develop at the position.
On the field, though, Waddle can be the key to unlocking the two-high-safety seal that opposing defenses often threw at Denver in 2025. Secondaries often shaded towards Broncos No. 1 wideout Courtland Sutton last year, and quarterback Bo Nix rarely had a consistent coverage-beating option. No. 2 WR Troy Franklin has caught just nine of 41 attempts of 20-plus air yards across two years in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats.
Waddle’s speed, though, gives Denver another legitimate vertical threat to stretch the field for the rest of Nix’s weapons.
“They’ve just diversified themselves even more than they already were,” said Scott, who’s now the secondary coach for the reigning Super Bowl-champion Seahawks. “I mean, you talk about a team that just went to the AFC Championship Game. So, how much more help do they need?”
Waddle is also “over the moon,” as Weber said, at the prospect of playing more reps in the slot. He played 51% of his snaps there in 2021, before shifting primarily to playing outside with McDaniel’s arrival in 2022. And his versatility and production between the hashes gives the Broncos the kind of explosive receiving target they haven’t had in the Payton era.
“With Mike McDaniel’s offense, it was timing,” Surtain Sr. said, who was a defensive assistant for the Dolphins in 2022. “Because Tua was that kinda quarterback. Boom – get to his fifth step, let the ball go, Jay (on) in-breaking cuts. But I think it’s way more than that with Jaylen. I think he can run the whole route tree.
“Obviously,” Surtain Sr. continued, “he’s a deep threat with his speed and explosiveness. He can run every route. And I think it’s going to be even more scary with Bo’s escapability … you’re going to see a lot of plays that break down where Jay gets open.”
Waddle fits the Payton profile in all but size, which is equally important. Waddle’s grit was “unquestioned” in Miami’s pre-draft evaluation, for one, after that junior-year return, as former Dolphins receiver coach Josh Gizzard said. The Saban pedigree means something in Denver, where Payton has hired multiple former Crimson Tide graduate assistants and drafted multiple former players. And the receiver comes off as agreeable off the field — without being docile.
“Don’t get me wrong, Jaylen’s a diva on the field,” Leisz said. “He wants the football. There’s no doubt about that.”
Coaches still know Waddle as the same kid in high school whose mother called before one game to report that he had a 100-plus-degree fever. Not to hold him out. To get them to hold him out. For an entire game, Kemble, the team’s offensive coordinator, had to sit by Waddle on the bench to make sure he didn’t tug on his helmet and sneak onto the field.
“I don’t think he’s lost any of that,” Kemble said. “I don’t think he’s lost that zeal.”
The Broncos are betting on it.
Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.