MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Had Tua Tagovailoa not gotten hurt, the discourse surrounding the Miami Dolphins offense this week would be a lot more caustic.
Tagovailoa’s injury obscured a truly ugly performance by Mike McDaniel’s group, which scored 10 points and had seven possessions ended by interceptions or turnovers on downs in a blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills.
Miami Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle Zoned Out
And it’s not too reductive to say that the Dolphins struggled because Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle had collectively their worst game since teaming up in 2022.
Hill and Waddle combined for just 65 receiving yards on seven catches — the lowest output in any game in which they and Tagovailoa all appeared.
How did the Bills do it? By playing zone defense on more than 80% of their snaps — including Cover 2 a remarkable 37.3% of the time.
That’s according to TruMedia, which also reports that the Bills generated 12 pressures despite blitzing on just 4.5% of Miami’s dropbacks.
The Bills’ game plan was simple: Take away Hill and Waddle and make the Dolphins beat them with another option.
It worked. De’Von Achane and Jonnu Smith combined for 13 catches for 122 yards, but neither had a reception longer than 16 yards.
“When a defensive team or an opponent is committing to take somebody away, you have to make them pay appropriately,” McDaniel said Monday.
“I think the [opportunities for Hill and Waddle] are still there, they just might not be as multiple when … you have two people guarding one on run downs.”
Last Thursday was one of the rare instances in which Miami’s all-world receiving tandem essentially told McDaniel to not throw them the ball.
“They’ll come to the sidelines and tell me, ‘Hey, you know what? We need to run the ball,’” McDaniel said. “What they’re saying is they know there’s not a run fit player. They know that the safety and the corner aren’t even looking at the ball during our play action, so you have to execute and make people pay when they’re overplaying something.
“I think that teams have a lot of reason to focus on those guys and I think collectively it’s a group effort to get them more involved. … [But] the rest of the offense is in an advantageous situation if they’re going to fully commit the way that some teams have been, that you always have to keep them involved, but there’s a balance where teammates have to really make opposing teams pay if they’re going to overcommit that way.
“And until we do, I think they understand as much as everybody else that teams will do something until you make them pay for it.”