Jaylen Waddle’s touchdown dance, explained: How Dolphins WR’s penguin celebration became a fun NFL trend

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The Dolphins have had an extremely fun start to their season.

Naturally it’s been helped along by a frankly surprising 3-0 start, but the way they’ve gotten there has been remarkable. Just a week after stunning the Ravens in comeback fashion, the Dolphins beat the Bills in a knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out showdown.

Tua Tagovailoa is tied with Patrick Mahomes at third in the league with eight touchdowns, Miami has three receivers with multiple TDs so far this year, and it looks like it could be primed to shock the world.

Even with all of that going on, there’s one reason above all it’s so fun to watch the Dolphins this year:

Jaylen Waddle’s waddle.

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Waddle is one of nine receivers tied for second in the league in touchdowns at three, and dating back to last year the waddle has been his signature touchdown dance while everyone else has taken over the Griddy.

Waddle, now in his second NFL season, had six touchdowns last year and is already halfway to that total in just three games this season. He’s emerged as one of most potent threats on the Dolphins offense, and he has his teammates dancing with him in the end zone.

Even the fans are in on it.

There is beauty in simplicity. Ask Waddle’s teammate Mike Gesicki.

What are the origins of the waddle?

As far as can be discerned, Waddle started doing the waddle after a touchdown against the Panthers in Week 13 of last year. After that, it started to stick.

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Something kind of wild: The earliest instance online of someone doing this dance to celebrate a Waddle touchdown actually is Jan. 1, 2020. Someone who one can reasonably infer is an Alabama fan named Seth Goodson tagged Alabama football’s Twitter account and shared a video of his kids doing the dance to celebrate. The tweet had no engagement at the time of writing, lost in the void of the internet.

Controversy around the waddle

Nothing good can only be good.

There is some “controversy” if you can call it that about who “owns” the waddle.

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Bills tackle Tim Settle, who played for the Commanders last year, said on a podcast Waddle was biting his style.

“I feel like he tried to add his little, own swag in there but you can’t take [it] from me,” Settle said on a podcast last year, per NBC Sports. “Come on now.”

Mississippi State’s Caleb Ducking has also gone on the record as saying he did the dance before Waddle.

“I did it first,” Ducking said this week, per the Clarion-Ledger. “One of my friends back home, he gave me the idea because of my name, so I started doing it. I’d never seen Jaylen Waddle do it until after.”

Let’s go ahead and put this to bed: Seth Goodson is the creator. But the waddle is for the people. Ducking and Waddle should waddle to their hearts’ content. Keep the most pure dance in football pure. 

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