IT WAS 11 A.M. on a Tuesday, less than 24 hours after tight end Darren Waller and his wife, WNBA star Kelsey Plum, had returned to Las Vegas from their honeymoon in Turks and Caicos.
Waller, who missed most of last season because of a left hamstring injury, had just wrapped a routine physical therapy session when Las Vegas Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler’s name unexpectedly popped up on his cellphone.
Ziegler told him he was being traded to the New York Giants for a third-round pick.
“I did not see this coming,” Waller said the day after being traded. “I was getting ready to just do everything I could to make myself available for the Raiders and get ready for everything that was going to start in mid-April. It caught me off guard, but it’s the nature of the business.”
Just 186 days after Ziegler and first-year coach Josh McDaniels signed Waller to a three-year, $51 million extension that made him one of the highest-paid tight ends in the NFL, he was gone. His $17 million per season is the most for a tight end in NFL history. San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle is second at $15 million per season.
Waller’s 3,394 receiving yards is third-best among tight ends since 2019, behind only the Kansas City Chiefs‘ Travis Kelce and the Baltimore Ravens‘
