Waller brings Dysfunction to tail end of mcdaniel era
Darren Waller, once one the most exciting and promising tight ends in the NFL, is making his return to football this season with the Miami Dolphins.
The Dolphins seem to be the hottest pick by sports analysts as the next team to fail miserably and hit the reset button on their staff and roster.
So why?
In a season with their head coach Mike McDaniel in the hot seat, a quarterback who nearly retired from concussions, and a locker room full of players who don’t respect this group of coaches.
Why did the Dolphins decide to trade for tight end turned rapper Darren Waller? Because the Dolphins are dysfunctional and desperate.
After two impressive 1,100 yards receiving seasons with the Raiders in 2019 and 2020, the production and the hype began to slow down for Waller. With injuries keeping Waller from playing more than 12 games a season from 2021 to 2023, and having to spend a season with the lowly NY Giants, Waller retired from football and put his focus into making music.
Waller sat out out out the 24/25 season, divorced his star basketball player wife Kelsey Plum, dropped a music video that unsubtly laid out his feeling on the divorce while having a Plum lookalike cast in the music video, and continued to make music that would only pop up in the zeitgeist of social media every few months to be heavily criticized by sports fans.
This seemed to be the track Waller would stay on for the forseable future until the Miami Dolphins came around.
The Dolphins had a very good option at tight in pro bowler Jonnu Smith last season. He had a career year for the team with 884 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns. However, the Dolphins refused to pay the price that comes with a pro bowl tight end with Smith flat out stating the the Dolphins, “weren't economically in a position to pay me like a Pro Bowl tight end”.
With no viable options to start at tight end for the Dolphins, because they waited until 25 days before training camp to address this, they took a swing by trading for a retired Darren Waller.
Full trade details: Dolphins trade - 6th round pick, Giants trade - Darren Waller, and a conditional 7th round pick
Waller signed a new 1-year contract with the Dolphins that is worth up to 5 million dollars.
The move isn’t terrible on paper. Dolphins make a low risk trade trade for the chance that Waller can be a stop gap starting tight end for one year. Waller also reconnects with a former coach from the Raiders in offensive coordinator Frank Smith.
The problem is that Waller couldn’t stay healthy even in his prime while playing in the NFL. My instant reaction to the signing was a blatant, this is going to be the easiest money Waller is ever going to make.
This sentiment echoed concerns of Dolphins fans online that Waller was only here to collect a check and would be injured by week 3. Which was completely false because he is not injured by week 3, he could not even make it through the first week of training camp.
On July 22nd, Darren was place on Physical Unable to Perform(PUP) list by the Miami Dolphins. This mean he can not practice at all with the team until medically cleared to participate. If he fails to become cleared before the regular season he will be forced to miss the first 4 weeks of the regular season.
The team has stated the this move is not injury related but simply a precaution due to football conditioning concerns. Which almost makes this a more concerning situation from the outside looking in, as the Dolphins have now traded for and paid a retired player who is not in good enough shape to even practice.
In the end the Darren Waller trade not working out will not be the reason that Mike McDaniel loses his job at the end of another failed season this year. It will just be another interesting anecdote on the long list of things that the Dolphins as an organization handled completely wrong that led them to this moment.
To sum up the McDaniel tenure in Miami as it, in my opinion, is coming to a train wreck of an ending this season: In the words of Darren Waller the rapper, “It's hard to give all of your soul then have your heart broken in return but It's time”
Written by Drew Chavez7/23/25