Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa posted the best passing-efficiency rating of his career as the Dolphins rallied for a 31-27 victory over the Detroit Lions on Sunday.

The former Alabama All-American completed 29-of-36 passes for 382 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. Tagovailoa produced the best passing-efficiency rating at 138.7 and the second-highest yardage total of his NFL career.

Tagovailoa had a 124.1 rating as he passed for 469 yards and six touchdowns in Miami’s 42-38 victory over the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 18, when the Dolphins came from 21 points down in the fourth quarter to win.

“I was very happy with the way the quarterback played and the decisions that he made,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said after Sunday’s game. “… He had a lot of plays that I was very, very happy with. That was the game that we all know he’s capable of. He was relentless during the game with worrying about the right stuff. I didn’t see him press and make forced decisions. He took what was there and protected the ball while being aggressive.”

After the Dolphins fell behind 14-0 on Sunday, Tagovailoa threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to former Crimson Tide teammate Jaylen Waddle with 50 seconds left in the first quarter, a 29-yard touchdown pass to Waddle with 11:30 left in the first half and an 11-yard pass to tight end Mike Gesicki with 12 seconds left in the third quarter. The final TD pass came with Miami trailing by three points and set the final score.

“I feel like we’re confident enough to know that nothing’s out of reach,” Waddle said. “With the type of offense that we have and the offensive weapons that we have, we’re confident we can come back, that it’s finally going to click.”

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Waddle caught eight passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns. He recorded the fourth 100-yard performance in his past seven games and had the third game of his career with two touchdown receptions.

But former West Alabama standout Tyreek Hill was the Dolphins’ top receiver on Sunday with 12 receptions for 188 yards against the Lions.

Hill had his fourth game this season with more than 160 receiving yards. All the other players in the NFL combined have four. With 961 receiving yards, Hill holds the NFL lead with a total that is the third-highest eight games into a season in league history. The St. Louis Rams’ Torry Holt had 978 receiving yards eight games into the 2003 season, and the Indianapolis Colts’ Marvin Harrison had 962 in 2000.

Hill and Waddle have combined for 1,688 receiving yards in 2022, the most for a pair of teammates eight games into a season in the NFL’s Super Bowl era.

“A lot goes into their production,” McDaniel said. “They work their tail off. They know how much they mean to this team. But it’s also a collection of individuals working with them. Every person on our team knows they can score on every touch, so the stuff that we have to do upfront, some of the stuff that the other eligibles have to do, it is a full commitment for their success because they are so dangerous with the ball in their hands. It’s something we try to play to. But it’s a full commitment by all players, and they get excited when their stats are high because they know how much they’ve contributed to that.”

Even with his passing stats, Tagovailoa’s most celebrated play might have been an 18-yard run.

Tagovailoa suffered a concussion on Sept. 29 that caused him to miss the next two games. He returned in Miami’s 16-10 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 23, and he had two runs in that contest on which he took on tacklers while trying to get first downs.

On Wednesday, Tagovailoa said the coaches didn’t want him to do that, but he said of his aversion to sliding at the end of runs: “It’s weird. It’s a like a weird competitive thing.”

But at the end of his run on Sunday, Tagovailoa got down without taking a big hit.

“I slid today,” Tagovailoa said. “I know my coaches, my teammates – my teammates were definitely proud of me. I came to the sideline, everybody was happy I slid. I was kind of happy that I slid, too.”

The Dolphins have a 5-0 record in the games this season that Tagovailoa has started and finished. They have an 0-3 record in the games in which that has not happened.

“This is sort of what I envisioned,” Tagovailoa said after Sunday’s victory. “But the greatest thing about this game is you can’t get content. You got to continue to keep growing. We’ll go and watch the film and look at things we could have done better. That’s the best part about it.”

Miami visits the Chicago Bears at noon CST Nov. 6 for its next game.

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