Miami Dolphins Trade for TE Darren Waller

Miami Gardens, FL.- The annual Miami Dolphins front office head scratching off-season move has been made!

Earlier this morning, Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network announced that the Miami Dolphins would be trading a 2026 6th round pick and 2027 7th rounder to the New York Giants for Tight End Darren Waller. Following the trade, Waller’s agent; Drew Rosenhaus announced that the soon to be 33 year old had signed a one year deal with the ‘Fins up to $5M.

Surprise! The #Dolphins are finalizing a trade with the #Giants for former Pro Bowl TE Darren Waller, who is coming out of retirement to play in Miami, per sources.

A fascinating twist for Waller, who retired last summer, and a new weapon for a team that just traded Jonnu Smith. pic.twitter.com/MDO2XnHClb
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) July 1, 2025

The addition of Waller seemingly fills the massive shoes left in the Tight End room by Jonnu Smith after being traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday morning. In his prime, Darren Waller was considered one of the League’s most physically gifted and athletic tight ends. Unfortunately, the key phrase in that sentence is “in his prime”.

During his nine year NFL career, Darren Waller had only recorded two 1,000+ receiving yard seasons. Those years were 2019 and 2020, and Waller would go onto be selected to the Pro Bowl in 2020. Following those breakout seasons, Waller’s availability was extremely limited, missing five, nine and five games over his final three seasons due to injury. These weren’t minor tweaks either, as Waller suffered IT band strains, Back injuries, hamstring injuries and groin injuries over that time frame.

Darren Waller would go onto retire from the NFL following the 2023 season, and begin a less than promising career as a rapper.

A worrisome stat that I found while researching this piece was ‘over his nine year NFL Career, Darren Waller missed 17 games due to hamstring injuries.’

While it should serve as no surprise that Darren Waller can be an absolute baller while on the field, trends have shown that he’ll spend more time on the training table or in the blue tent than being productive. With that being said- Waller immediately enters Miami as Tight End 1, and can provide some form of reliable upside.

Do I think Waller is going to sniff the 1K yard seasons of the past? No, but I do think he can be extremely useful in short yardage situations or in the redzone, given opportunity.