When quarterback Malik Willis agreed to sign with the Dolphins in March, Jaylen Waddle was on the team and was expected to be the club’s leading receiver.
But that changed in a hurry, as days later, Miami traded Waddle to Denver for several draft picks.
How did Willis react to the news of the trade?
“It was unfortunate for sure, to say the least,” Willis told reporters in his Tuesday press conference, via transcript from the team. “That’s a really good player and I would have loved to play with him, but that’s above my pay grade, brother. Out of my hands.”
While Willis’ group of receivers is certainly different without Waddle, the quarterback is still establishing chemistry now during the later stages of the offseason program with players like Malik Washington and Jalen Tolbert.
“I think all of them have been doing a great job from top to bottom,” Willis said of Miami’s wideouts. “Everybody has the right mindset to come in and work and just do the best that they can to show what they can do.
“I feel like it’s an opportunity for all of us. It’s a bunch of new faces, whether it’s rookies or guys that have been here, but we’re all in front of new guys for the first time, and we got to try to continue to show what we can do.”
Broncos Clips
The news that Aaron Rodgers is officially back with the Steelers for his 22nd NFL season means he’ll continue to add to one of the most impressive statistical résumés any quarterback has ever assembled.
Of particular note is that Rodgers is likely to move ahead of Peyton Manning for the third-most touchdown passes in NFL history. Rodgers has thrown 527 touchdown passes in his NFL career, while Manning retired with 539, so Rodgers needs just 13 touchdown passes to move ahead of Manning. As long as Rodgers stays healthy, he should eclipse Manning’s career total early in the season.
Rodgers would likely need to play two more seasons to move into second place, which is currently occupied by Drew Brees, with 571 career touchdown passes. And Tom Brady’s all-time record of 649 career touchdown passes appears insurmountable.
Rodgers could also lose, a couple of of the career records he currently holds, however. At the moment, Rodgers is tied for the highest career passer rating in NFL history: Rodgers and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson both have a passer rating of 102.2. But last year Jackson’s passer rating was 103.8 and Rodgers’ was 94.8, so if they both play at the same level in 2026, Jackson will take first place in the record books all to himself.
Rodgers could also fall behind Joe Burrow (101.1) and Patrick Mahomes (100.8), who are currently third and fourth in NFL history in career passer rating. The best career passer rating is a record Rodgers likely won’t hold by the end of the season.
Another career record Rodgers could lose is the all-time lowest interception percentage. Rodgers has thrown 123 interceptions in 8,743 career passes, a career interception rate of 1.41 percent. Rodgers is just barely ahead of Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who has a career interception rate of 1.42 percent, and not far ahead of Justin Herbert at 1.7 percent and Burrow and Mahomes at 1.8 percent.
Ultimately, the numbers Rodgers puts up this season, when he’ll turn 43 years old, won’t matter a lot to his legacy. He’s an all-time great regardless of what he does this season. But his career numbers will change, and perhaps not entirely for the better.
The Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs in 2025, but the release of the schedule for the 2026 season showed that the NFL still sees them as a marquee attraction.
Kansas City is scheduled for six primetime games and two of them come in the first two weeks of the season. They’ll be home against the Broncos on Monday night in Week 1 and back at Arrowhead Stadium to face the Colts on Sunday night in Week 2.
The scheduling suggests that the league believes Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be playing after recovering from last season’s torn ACL, but their head coach Andy Reid said on NFL Network Thursday that the team did not speak to the league about Mahomes’s health as part of the scheduling process. Reid did give another positive update on how things are going, however.
“He’s doing great right now and that’s kinda how you gotta go about this,” Reid said. “People go ‘well, he’s ahead of schedule.’ Who made the schedule? Everybody’s different, let’s just take it day by day. Nobody is spending more time than he is rehabbing, he spends seven hours here going through it. He hasn’t missed a day and he wants more, all the things that are Patrick Mahomes. Let’s see where we are at as we go forward as we get a little bit closer to the game.”
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix is coming off of a broken ankle and Reid joked that the league might have scheduled that as the opener as “motivation” for the two quarterbacks as they rehab, but said the scheduled won’t determine any of the team’s plans.
“He’s making progress, but you don’t know,” Reid said. “That’s the reality of it. You’re not going to put the player in a position where he can’t tend to himself on the football field.”
The league will continue to pay close attention to that progress in hopes of welcoming Mahomes back to the field on a grand stage.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The Rams and Seahawks played three nail-biters during the 2025 season and the NFL is banking on another one on Christmas night.
The matchup of NFC West teams will cap a three-game slate on Christmas this year. The Friday night game on December 25 will take place in Seattle and it will be broadcast by Fox.
Los Angeles won 21-19 at home last November, but lost 38-37 in overtime in Seattle later in the regular season. The final meeting between the clubs came in the NFC Championship Game and was a 31-27 Seahawks win.
Netflix will kick off the day’s games with a doubleheader that starts with the Packers visiting the Bears at 1 p.m. ET. The Bills will be in Denver at 4:30 p.m. ET in a rematch of last season’s divisional round game that the Broncos won in overtime.
With Christmas Eve falling on a Thursday, there will also be a game on Amazon Prime Video that night. The Eagles will travel to Houston to face the Texans, so all four games around the Christmas holiday will feature matchups of teams that were in the playoffs last season.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
Von Miller said in March that he would love to return to the Broncos if he did not re-sign with the Commanders and that prospect came up with the Broncos’ current pass-rushing ace.
Miller was a 2011 first-round pick for the Broncos and he won a Super Bowl while making four All-Pro teams before being traded to the Rams in 2021. He remains a free agent and Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto said that the notion of a second stint with the Broncos is something that would be met with smiles in Denver.
“It would be pretty crazy, for sure,” Bonitto said, via Zac Stevens of DNVR. “Obviously, everybody would love that. Not only the fans but the players. He’s a guy that’s loved here in Denver so much. My personal favorite player ever to watch. Just being able to share a room with him would be amazing.”
Miller had nine sacks for the Commanders last season, but it’s unclear if the musings of the two players are matched by concrete interest from the Broncos in a reunion.
The Broncos are moving on from a pair of players in a series of Tuesday roster moves.
Via multiple reporters, Denver is waiving running back Deuce Vaughn and cornerback Will Wright.
The Broncos had added receiver Michael Woods and cornerback Paul Manning after both players participated in rookie minicamp on a tryout basis.
Vaughn had joined the club last September on the team’s practice squad. He did not appear in a regular-season game and signed a futures deal with the team in January.
A Cowboys sixth-round pick in 2023, Vaughn has appeared in 14 career games, recording 110 yards rushing and 10 catches for 58 yards.
The Chiefs ended their 2025 home slate with a visit from the Broncos. The Chiefs will start 2026 the same way.
After announcing on Tuesday morning that the Broncos and Chiefs will cap the first week of the season with a Monday night game, the league has now supplied the location: The game will be played in Kansas City.
The Christmas night 20-13 win by the Broncos ended a 10-year losing streak at Arrowhead Stadium. Denver won that game with the Chiefs not having quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who had suffered a season-ending knee injury two weeks earlier. His availability will now hover over the prime-time division matchup to start the year.
By all indications, Mahomes will be ready to go. And Mahomes is wired to do everything he can, and then some, to get back. The fact that the season opens with the defending AFC West champs coming to town will serve only to make him more determined to be ready to play, and to play well.
The announcement locks in three of the four prime-time games for Week 1. On Sunday night, the Cowboys will visit the Giants. On Thursday night, the 49ers will face the Rams in Australia. The only game left to be determined is the Wednesday night opener in Seattle, where the Seahawks will host an opponent to be announced.
The first Monday Night Football game of the season will feature a matchup of the last two AFC West champions.
The NFL announced on Tuesday that the Broncos and Chiefs will meet to cap off the Week 1 schedule. The location of the game is still being finalized, per Adam Schefter of ESPN, and is expected to be announced ahead of or along with the announcement of the rest of the schedule on Thursday.
Denver broke the Chiefs’ long run of division titles last season and the game will likely feature the return to action of Broncos quarterback Bo Nix after he broke his ankle in the divisional round of the playoffs. It could also see Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes play his first game since tearing his ACL last December, but we’ll have to be much closer to the game to know if that will be the case.
The Chiefs are also the fifth of the Seahawks’ potential Week 1 opponents — the 49ers, Rams, Giants and Cowboys are the others — to have their opening game revealed, which leaves the Cardinals, Chargers, Bears and Patriots as the remaining options for the first game of the 2026 NFL season.
