The Miami Dolphins likely will be without Darren Waller when they face the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, leaving them with a collection of under-the-radar tight ends for the game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
And as the Dolphins face a rebuilding project after this so-far-forgettable 2025 season, they very well could be in the market for an impact player at the position then too because Waller is signed only through the 2025 season and who knows whether he’ll want to continue his comeback from retirement and whether Miami will want to bring him back.
The other tight ends on the 53-man roster right now are Julian Hill and Tanner Conner, with Hayden Rucci and Greg Dulcich on the practice squad.
None of those players can be considered an impact players or somebody who could make a difference at the position for the Dolphins for the next four years.
Nobody like, say, Tyler Warren or Oronde Gadsden II.
And the shame here is the Dolphins had the chance to get both of them, an all-around talent like Warren who’s got the look of a future All-Pro like Warren or a legit receiving threat like Gadsden.
Gadsden, the son of the former Dolphins wide receiver of the same name, was selected in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Chargers after Miami had not one, not two but three shots at making the legacy selection.
At the time of the draft, the Dolphins still had Jonnu Smith on the roster as a receiving tight end, but they already knew his contract situation could proven problematic and lead to his departure, which is what ultimately happened with his trade to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
While his blocking limitations were obvious during the pre-draft process — he was an oversized wide receiver at Syracuse — it was clear he had great potential as a receiver, far above and beyond what was on the roster at the time outside of Smith.
Instead, the Dolphins used their three fifth-round picks on Jordan Phillips, Jason Marshall Jr. and Dante Trader Jr. While it’s way too early to make any sort of judgment on whether the Dolphins got those picks right, the early call as that Gadsden is off to a better start than any of them.
In the Chargers’ loss against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, Gadsden caught seven passes, matching the season high he produced against the Dolphins the previous week. More significantly, Gadsden had 164 receiving yards and his first NFL touchdown.
To put that into perspective, the 164 yards represented the highest total by an NFL tight end this season. It also was 34 yards more than the highest single-game total ever achieved by a Miami tight end, done by Mike Gesicki against the Buffalo Bills in 2020.
This isn’t to suggest that Gadsden would have done for Miami what Waller did before his pec injury — namely four touchdowns in three games — but he looks like somebody who could be a factor for the next several seasons.
The deal with Warren is a bit more complicated because he wasn’t last until the fifth round, but rather was taken with the 13th overall pick.
That was right before the Dolphins selected Michigan defensive tackle Kenneth Grant, and again the early returns here say Miami got it wrong.
Grant is coming off what might have been his best performance of the season, but his play has been uneven. Warren, meanwhile, has been a stud for the Colts and one of the reasons Indianapolis finds itself with the best record in the NFL at 6-1.
And the thing with Warren is he represents the kind of complete tight end that’s so hard to find, somebody who can block, catch and even gets yards after the catch.
The tricky part here is that tight end doesn’t hold the same positional value as a defensive lineman, but that’s always superseded by landing an unusual talent. And that’s what Warren appears to be at this time.
The bottom line is that when the Dolphins are doing some retooling or rebuilding next year — yes, we’re already looking ahead — and they assess the tight end position, they might look back with regret at having not grabbed either Warren or Gadsden when they had the chance.
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