Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has had some of the worst games of his NFL career against the Buffalo Bills. Entering Sunday’s contest, Tagovailoa had a 1-7 record as a starting quarterback and a 74.1 passing-efficiency rating against Buffalo. Versus the rest of the NFL, the former Alabama All-American has a 32-14 record and a 100.1 passing-efficiency rating.

Tagovailoa also has fractured ribs, fractured a finger and left three of the games against the Bills early for the locker room, including for a concussion when the teams met on Sept. 12. That caused Tagovailoa to miss the next four games.

In his second contest back on the field on Sunday, Tagovailoa completed 25-of-28 passes for 231 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions against the Bills. Tagovailoa’s performance was the eighth in NFL history in which a quarterback with 28 or more passes completed at least 89.2 percent of them.

“I thought Tua played one of his best games since we’ve been working together,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said.

But the Dolphins still lost to Buffalo 30-27 when Tyler Bass made a 61-yard field goal on the final snap of the game.

“Hat’s off to Tyler Bass for making that,” Tagovailoa said. “Hat’s off to their team. They did a great job. It was a great game. There’s things that we could fix on both sides of the ball offensively and defensively, but I think we’re taking a step in the right direction as a team. This wasn’t the result that we wanted, but just got to keep pushing, man. It’s still a long season.”

While Tagovailoa dropped to 1-8 against Buffalo, the Dolphins have only one victory to show for their past 13 games against the Bills, and they lost their eighth in a row in Orchard Park, New York. Miami’s most recent victory over Buffalo on the road came on Dec. 24, 2016.

“We just got to find a way to beat them,” Tagovailoa said. “That’s it. I know it sounds mundane because I say this over and over, but we just got to find a way to beat them.”

The Dolphins tied the game twice in the fourth quarter.

Miami moved 70 yards in nine plays to tie the scored at 20-20 with 12:14 to play on running back De’Von Achane’s 8-yard touchdown run.

On that drive, Tagovailoa scrambled for 4 yards on a fourth-and-4 snap from the Buffalo 25-yard line. Miami scored two plays later.

With 1:38 to play, Tagovailoa tossed a 7-yard TD pass to wide receiver Jaylen Waddle – just back into the game from getting hurt – for a 27-27 tie. The Dolphins went 81 yards in 11 plays to get that touchdown, with Tagovailoa completing 5-of-6 passes for 65 yards during the series.

Tagovailoa’s first touchdown pass went to Achane from 14 yards out as Miami took a 10-3 lead with 3:20 left in the first half. The Dolphins went 97 yards in 14 plays for the game’s first touchdown.

While Buffalo moved to 7-2 with its fourth straight victory, Miami dropped to 2-6 with its third loss in a row.

“I would say we took a step in the right direction as a team collectively,” Tagovailoa said. “This is the ball that we want to show on Sundays, but there’s a lot of things we’re always going to have to clean up, and we’re going to continue to skin the cat however we need to, and we’re going to move forward with that.”

The Dolphins play the Los Angeles Rams at 7:15 p.m. CST Nov. 11 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

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