RP Clips: Bo Nix + Jaylen Waddle to the Moon?

**Matt Harmon** (0:00)
This is Reception Perception, The Show. James Koh and Matt Harmon.

**James Koh** (0:06)
Quarterback wide receiver matching. We go to Denver.
Bo Nix, Jaylen Waddle.
How do these guys match up? We're talking about most throne routes for Bo Nix. It's 15% on the check down. So we'll just throw that out.
13.3% on the 9 route. So see the check down or touchdown, baby, I like it. But 13.3% 9 route, 12.8% curl, 12.3% out. Actually, really, when you're taking a look at this, this would favor, you would imagine, a lot of X receiver stuff. Again, his three most thrown routes, not including the check down. It's the 9, it's the curl, it's the out. And those are all pretty relatively fairly close together anywhere between 12.3 and 13.3%. So again, 9 curl out. Those are his most thrown routes. We're talking about the most best success rates on the routes thrown. It's actually the curl route again, 84%. 84% success on the slant route, really good. 56% on the dig, not great. 65% on the out, not great. And 62% on the come back, not great. So his two best routes in terms of success rate, curls and slants, not so much on the dig out come back. How does that match up with Jaylen Waddle?

**Matt Harmon** (1:31)
Yeah, I definitely think there's some good and some things that I think Nix will need to improve on to really get the most out of Jaylen Waddle. And you could also argue that Jaylen Waddle is going to make him look significantly better than some of the guys that he's worked with previously. I mean, right now, like you look at that out route at 65.2% and I mean, dude, like who are we throwing out cuts to with the Denver Broncos at this point? Like who's got the speed disorder threatened separate? And like, Coralyn Sutton is a very kind of like a limited player.
He's a good player, clearly, for sure. He's someone who knows how to work.
He knows how to work like in contentious situations, he actually runs a pretty good dig route, which is kind of funny that Nix threw a dig route relative to the average started quarterback at a higher rate. Success rate 56% probably could be better. But yeah, I think that there's something there in terms of what he is as a player, but he's a limited guy, doesn't win against zone coverage was Jaylen Waddle. 81.3% success rate versus zone. I think actually pretty good working on out breaking routes against zone coverage. So I think the way that Jaylen Waddle helps Bo Nix is like, he just gives him a better quality target on some of these breaking routes, which I don't think they've had so far. I mean, that's something to, by the way, you start looking, maybe I'm just way over my skis on Waddle who, and I'm super, I am really, really high on Waddle. Like in fantasy, I've got him ranked as a top 12, 13 receiver, and he still goes in the 20s at that position, which I just think is kind of crazy. I think the two biggest pushbacks you get to Jaylen Waddle is number one, like he gets hurt a lot, which I think is fair. He's kind of been, not that he's had major injuries and missed huge chunks of seasons, but he has had nagging injuries and had to come off the field. That's a big part of it. The other thing is like, well, Sean Payton always rotates his receivers. Does he or does he rotate his receivers in Denver, where it is like kind of a bunch of role players, you know? Like here's the deal. Like Jaylen Waddle is not going to get treated like Troy Franklin and Marvin Mims, you know? Or Pat Brian. I like Pat Brian, but like, that's just not, they're not going to trade a first and a third round pick for a guy who's as good as Jaylen Waddle and then treat them like Troy Franklin. Like that never happens. So I don't think that really holds up to merit, but yeah, I think that those guys are so, like, they're useful players, but they just don't project cleanly as vertical receivers, especially even if they have some speed, whereas Jaylen Waddle pretty clearly does. So I think that nine route percentage in terms of how often Bo Nix throws it, I guess what, buddy, you're going to have the best nine route runner you've had in a long time in Jaylen Waddle here.

**James Koh** (4:16)
Yeah. Okay. So when you take a look at Jaylen Waddle's success rates from his previous season, not his most recent season here, 58% success rate on the nine was incredible on these deeper routes, man, like nearly 90% success rate on the post. When I, it's really funny, Matt, when I think of when I think of Sean Payton's offense, I think actually of deeper post routes for big plays, right? And again, speed, you know, speed slot stuff that down the seams, that's definitely a staple in Sean Payton's offense too. But when I think about big plays, I do tend to think of big post routes there.