MIAMI GARDENS -- Mike McDaniel saw this coming.
In the weeks leading up to his team's 30-0 shutout win over the New York Jets, the Miami Dolphins coach had a feeling wide receiver Jaylen Waddle was in for a big performance.
He was correct.
Waddle finished with a season-high 142 yards on eight receptions Sunday, including a 60-yard touchdown that nearly doubled his longest catch of the season. The third-year receiver served as Miami's No. 1 option in the passing game with Tyreek Hill sidelined with a left ankle injury, and he delivered with his best game of the season.
"For the last three weeks probably, I thought that [Waddle] was going to have a performance like this today," McDaniel said. "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 [quarterback Tua Tagovailoa] 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 know that's what leads to some special stuff on Sunday, for sure."
Waddle's day got off to an inauspicious start when he briefly left the game after a hard landing knocked the wind out of him. He returned on Miami's next drive to a collective sigh of relief from the home crowd at Hard Rock Stadium.
That same crowd wasn't sure what to expect out of a Dolphins offense that struggled to move the ball in a loss to the Tennessee Titans just six days prior. Hill, the NFL's leading receiver, did not participate in any of the Dolphins' three practices during the week after suffering the ankle injury in that loss to the Titans -- forcing Miami to prepare for a scenario that it hasn't faced since trading for Hill last offseason.
Sunday marked the first game Hill has missed as a member of the Dolphins, shining a spotlight on Waddle as the team's next-leading receiver. McDaniel said Waddle "rose to the occasion when the team absolutely needed it," but Waddle shifted the credit to Miami's entire offense.
"When a guy like Tyreek's out, it's not just one person that has to step up," he 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 ..."
Hill's absence directly addressed a narrative about whether the Dolphins' offense could produce without him.
Miami didn't turn in its best offensive performance of the season -- 290 total yards while averaging 5.1 yards per play -- but it didn't have to in a game dominated by its defense.
Tagovailoa finished with 224 yards and a touchdown on 21-of-24 passing. He said that while Sunday's game spoke volumes about what Miami's offense is capable of, he and his teammates weren't focused on what skeptics had to say about their potential.
"I mean, that's what everyone is going to say. Everyone is going to have their own deal with how they feel," Tagovailoa said. "But it's a team sport. Like with '10' (Hill) being down - I went out there when '10' was warming up ... I went up to him, and I told him, 'Dude, if you can't go, we got you, brother. It's a team sport. It's going to take all of us.'
"With not having him and to be able to put 30 points and have a shutout by our defense should tell you a lot about the team, really, the guys on all three aspects and three phases of the game."
The Dolphins remain two games ahead of the Buffalo Bills in the AFC East standings and host the Dallas Cowboys in Week 16.