Former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, in his current job as an ESPN football analyst, suggested last week the Miami Dolphins would do well to trade wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to the Kansas City Chiefs for cornerback Trent McDuffie.

Dolphins All-Pro wide receiver Tyreek Hill termed the suggestion “ludicrous” and said Miami fans advocating for the idea were “talking crazy.”

This week, the Chiefs gave a cornerback permission to seek a trade. But it was L’Jarius Sneed, not McDuffie. And Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said Waddle wasn’t going anywhere, not even in exchange for a cornerback who was a first-team All-Pro in his second NFL season.

Tannenbaum and Grier are former co-workers in Miami. In his final NFL job before going into broadcasting, Tannenbaum served as the Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations from 2015 through 2018. Grier was the director of college scouting in 2015, became general manager in 2016 and took over Tannenbaum’s duties in 2018.

“I have no thoughts of trading Jaylen Waddle,” Grier said when asked at the NFL Scouting Combine about Tannenbaum’s suggestion. “We want him here for a long time, and we think he’s a big part of our now and our future here. He’s a great person on and off the field, and we still think as good as he is, he still has runway to keep getting better.”

After joining Miami from Alabama’s 2020 undefeated CFP national-championship team as the sixth selection in the 2021 draft, Waddle broke the NFL rookie record for receptions by catching 104 passes. In his second season, Waddle led the NFL with an average of 18.1 yards per reception in 2022.

Waddle recorded his third straight 1,000-yard receiving season in 2023, when he had 72 receptions for 1,014 yards and four touchdowns despite missing three full games and parts of others because of injuries.

With 251 receptions for 3,385 yards and 18 touchdowns, Waddle is the eighth player in NFL history to reach those numbers in those three stats in his first three seasons.

RELATED: NFL 1,000-YARD RECEIVERS: 7 FROM STATE REACH MILESTONE IN 2023

But if he isn’t entertaining the idea of trading Waddle, Grier still has a decision to make about the wide receiver.

Like all drafted players, Waddle began his NFL career with a four-year contract. Like all first-round draft picks, Waddle also had a team option for a fifth season in that contract.

The Dolphins have until May 2 to decide if they will exercise their option in Waddle’s contract for the 2025 season. If Miami does pick up the option, it will guarantee Waddle $15.591 million for the 2025 season before he has played the 2024 season.

The Dolphins have the same decision to make on linebacker Jaelan Phillips, who was the 18th selection in the 2021 draft. And quarterback Tua Tagovailoa reached the end of his four-year, $30.275 million rookie contract in 2023 and will be playing on his fifth-year option for $23.171 million in 2024.

Miami is seeking to work out a long-term deal with Tagovailoa, who led the NFL in passing yards in 2023. The quarterback contract with the 10th-highest average value in the league is worth $40 million a season to the Los Angeles Rams’ Matt Stafford.

“All you guys have seen around the league is when you get those (quarterbacks) on a rookie deal, it allows you to do the things that we’ve done the last few years,” Grier said, “to go get guys, whether it was Tyreek, Bradley, etc. And also for us moving forward, we have had a lot of good young players come up, too, like Jaylen Waddle and Phillips. We have five or six guys, too, that we’re talking to that are going to be candidates for possible extensions.”

The Dolphins will be doing that while in the second-tightest salary-cap situation in the NFL. With the 2024 salary cap set at $255.4 million, Miami still has contract obligations for the season that are $28.486 million beyond that. Only the Buffalo Bills are in a worse salary-cap situation than the Dolphins.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.