New Light on Waddle Trade Discussions

The Miami Dolphins ended up making one move at the 2025 NFL trade deadline and the question remains how close they were to dealing wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to the Buffalo Bills.

Bills director of football operations Brandon Beane discussed Monday the team's attempt to acquire a front-line wide receiver for the stretch run during an appearance with Adam Schein of Mad Dog Radio, and shared an interesting detail about one particular target.

While he didn't specify the team or the player, it's probably not a stretch to suggest that player was Waddle because Beane said the Bills had the highest offer for the player from an AFC East team, and that matches the reporting after the Dolphins let the deadline pass with Jaelan Phillips being the only player they moved.

"It's got to work within our financials, and unless a team is willing to eat money, Cleveland had already converted (Amari) Cooper down and so you're able to do that," Beane said about the Bills' trade for Amari Cooper in 2024. "If a club's not willing to do that, that can kind of limit the possibility of making that happen at the deadline. But we talked about a lot of those guys. (Rashid) Shaheed with New Orleans, we were involved in that. Obviously he gets shipped to Seattle, and in divisionb we talked to one or two of those teams about their players, but at the end of the day, I know we had the strongest offer on one. I know that, but they ultimately decided not to pull the trigger, which maybe they decided wasn't enough, or maybe they just decided they didn't want to send them in division. They would have to answer that."

That answer might never be coming because the Dolphins have a new GM and new head coach who weren't in place until January.

But there was an additional detail that Beane revealed that might have been the most interesting of all, and it speaks to the Dolphins' hesitancy in trading Waddle. And keep in mind there was some serious thought because running back De'Von Achane said on Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown's podcast late in the season that he thought Waddle was gone.

"I felt like we had the best offer from all my Intel, which I did find out we did," Beane said. "But I don't know the reason why they didn't pull the trigger. I don't know if they got cold feet on trading the player altogether, or if they just decided they needed more compensation. But they never really countered back to us. 'Hey, if you do this, you can have him.' So you never really know, was he really available? Was he not? Or were you just going to have to go to a deal that they just, you know, was so unbelievable that there's no way they could turn it down. I don't know. When you don't get a counter back, it's hard to truly know how willing or not they were willing to move the player."

Beane's comment would seem to counter the suggestion that he made an offer of a first-round pick in 2027 and a third-round pick but that the Dolphins insisted on the first-round pick being in the 2026 draft because that would prompt a negotiation that Beane said never happened.

COULD MOVING WADDLE HAPPEN IN THE SPRING?

At the time of the trading deadline, Waddle was coming off games with 99 and 82 receiving yards, which projects to 1,538 yards over a 17-game season, and he added 84 yards in the first post-deadline game, the upset victory against those same Buffalo Bills.

But Waddle faded down the stretch, was injured early in the Week 17 game against Tampa Bay and missed the regular season finale at New England.

Waddle finished the season with 64 catches for 910 yards and two touchdowns, and that those numbers would not seem to justify giving first- and third-round picks in a trade and conversely shouldn't stop the Dolphins from making that trade if offered — division rival or not.

Waddle has a very manageable $11.6 million cap number in 2026 before it jumps into the 30s next year, though his salary no longer will be guaranteed.

So he's one of those players about whom new GM Jon-Eric Sullivan will have to make a decision as he puts together the 2026 roster.