Even though Miami played without the NFL leader in receiving yards on Sunday, the Dolphins still had a wideout put up big numbers in the passing game.

Jaylen Waddle had eight receptions for 142 yards and one touchdown in Miami’s 30-0 victory over the New York Jets.

The Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill had averaged 118.6 receiving yards per game on his way to a league-leading 1,542 in 2023 before missing Sunday’s game because of an ankle injury.

“When a guy like Tyreek’s out, it’s not just one person that has to step up,” Waddle said. “It’s the whole team, the whole unit when you have a caliber guy like Tyreek Hill, a Hall of Fame guy like ‘Cheetah’ that’s missing. I think collectively we did a good job. It’s good. That’s a good defense, a great team, a great organization that we competed against today.”

But none of the other seven Miami players who caught passes on Sunday totaled more than 32 receiving yards against the Jets.

Waddle had the 10th 100-yard game of his career and his third-highest single-game receiving yardage even though he was shaken up on the opening series and missed a portion of the first half. Waddle missed the third game of the season because of a concussion and, as on Sunday, has been nicked up in several other games in 2023.

“Jaylen had probably the best offseason, if not the best, right there with the top three offseasons of any player on our team,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said after Sunday’s game, “and he came into the season with a lot of momentum or came into training camp with a lot of momentum and then had just some random injuries that he was dealing with.

“One of the coolest parts about this season has been watching him progress through those injuries, and then for the last three weeks probably, I thought that he was going to have a performance like this today, and I think he had his best route-running game the week previous against the Titans. Then he just continued that in the week of practice, so there was some stuff that we had up that I knew our quarterback was supremely confident in because he watched the tape, too, and watched the same progression, so when you have players who are very confident — one running the route and one throwing it to him — you’ve seen that story throughout your career and you know that’s what leads to some special stuff on Sunday for sure.”

The biggest connection between quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and Waddle came on a deep throw that resulted in a 60-yard touchdown and a 17-0 lead for the Dolphins with 7:42 left in the first half.

“There’s not many people that could cover the route that Jaylen Waddle ran because there’s not many people that are capable of going vertical,” McDaniel said. “He did a left-right move and then still found an exit angle, which is a very hard thing to do. We really liked the player, the matchup and just kind of the way those two were connecting all week. Yeah, that was pretty easy to call.”

Jets cornerback D.J. Reed, who got beaten on the play, explained it this way: “It’s one-on-one. Mano-y-mano. He got the best of me. Sometimes it happens.”

RELATED: MIAMI QB TUA TAGOVAILOA ‘COMMANDED THE GAME ENTIRELY’

The 60-yard touchdown came on a first-down throw. But Tagovailoa completed all three of his third-down passes to Waddle for 37 yards and had a 25-yard completion to his former Alabama teammate on a fourth-and-5 snap at the New York 45-yard line.

“We keep the chains moving,” Waddle said. “Having big plays on third down is something we harp on throughout the week, and we know if we’re good on third down that that’s often good for our chances of getting in the end zone.”

After joining Miami as the sixth pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Waddle set a league rookie record with 104 receptions. Last season, Waddle led the NFL in yards-per-catch at 18.1.

In his third NFL season, Waddle has 71 receptions for 964 yards and four touchdowns. With 36 more receiving yards in 2023, Waddle will become the ninth player in NFL history with 1,000 in each of his first three seasons.

Already, Waddle is the eighth NFL player to reach 250 receptions and 3,300 receiving yards in his first 46 NFL games, a list that also includes another former Alabama standout, Julio Jones.

By beating the Jets, Miami bounced back from a disappointing performance in its previous game – a 28-27 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Dec. 11 – and raised its record to 10-4.

“Like I said last week, we got a good group of guys and leadership,” Waddle said, “and they really came together this week and played a good game.”

The Dolphins have a formidable schedule to close the regular season. Miami hosts the 10-4 Dallas Cowboys at 3:25 p.m. CST Sunday, then visits the 11-3 Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 31 and hosts the 8-6 Buffalo Bills on Jan. 7.

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