The Jaylen Waddle hype has Brandon Stokley a little nervous

There’s a familiar cycle in professional sports that plays out every time a team makes a splashy acquisition. The trade happens. The highlights circulate. The fan base falls in love with the idea of what the player will become in their uniform. And then, somewhere between the introductory press conference and the first regular-season snap, the expectations inflate to a level that becomes genuinely difficult to meet.

The Denver Broncos and Jaylen Waddle are deep inside that cycle right now.

On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Mike Evans asked the question that has been building underneath the enthusiasm.

“The hype guys, has been huge for Waddle ever since he became a Bronco. Is there any part of you Stoke, that worries it’s almost too much?” Evans asked.

Brandon Stokley didn’t dodge it.

“Yeah, of course. You know, I was kinda driving that bus during the season when I wanted them to trade for him,” Stokley said.

That admission carries weight. Stokley was one of the loudest voices publicly advocating for the Broncos to pursue a Waddle trade. He wanted the move. He believed in the fit. And he still does. But wanting a player and then watching the expectations around that player spiral beyond what the numbers support are two very different things.

Stokley walked through his read on the situation.

“I’m very pumped up and excited about it. But you hear Sean Payton during the offseason talking about him, and everyone else is excited about this guy. So of course you’re kinda nervous, that ‘Man, well you just heard (Jon) Gruden there say he hadn’t had an 1,000 yard season in the last two years,'” Stokley said.

That statistical reality is the part of the conversation that tends to get drowned out by the excitement. Waddle hasn’t eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark since his 2023 campaign.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of it; his route-running and speed remain elite. But it does mean the automatic assumption that he will produce at that level in Denver deserves a second look.

The Broncos haven’t had two 1,000-yard receivers since 2016, when Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders were operating at the peak of their powers. Bo Nix may have the arm and the chemistry to get both Courtland Sutton and Waddle over that threshold, but history suggests it is harder to accomplish than most fans realize.

Stokley closed with the honest tension that lives inside every fan who has talked themselves into believing in a move.

“Will he live up to those expectations? Certainly, you are concerned a little bit. Because they’re high, high, very high expectations,” Stokley said.

That’s the delicate balance the Broncos are navigating.

Waddle is a talent. His speed changes defensive alignments. His presence opens up the rest of the receiver room in ways that should benefit Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin, Marvin Mims and Pat Bryant. The excitement is earned. But the gap between earned excitement and unchecked hype is where disappointment lives.

And Stokley, for all his enthusiasm, is wise enough to acknowledge that the gap exists.

Waddle doesn’t need to be a 1,200-yard receiver to justify the trade. He needs to make the offense better. If Broncos Country can calibrate its expectations to that standard rather than the fantasy version, the season will feel a lot more satisfying regardless of where the final numbers land.

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