Dolphins have won with methodical drives instead of big plays during 2-game win streak

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Last season, the Miami Dolphins were known for their big-play offense.

It made sense that the Dolphins led the league in plays of 10- and 50-plus yards. They have the fastest receivers in the NFL with speedsters Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, as well as some of the league's quickest running backs with Raheem Mostert and De'Von Achane.

This season, Miami's offense has changed. As defenses have keyed on limiting those big plays by keeping two safeties deep, the Dolphins have traded dynamic offense for long methodical drives, which was on display in their win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday.

“That’s something that we’ve been talking about since the start of the offseason," coach Mike McDaniel said, "in conjunction with forecasting how do we win elimination games, how do you win down the stretch. How do you win down the stretch of the season? You have to adjust to what is being presented to you.”

Three of Miami's drives on Sunday were 14 or more plays and lasted longer than seven minutes. They had another drive that went 10 plays over 5:44. Three of four resulted in touchdowns.

They only had seven possessions, but they were efficient— a show of how the unit led by quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has evolved from a quick-strike approach to a ball control offense.

Tagovailoa said this new-look offense is a product of his growth as well. He leads the NFL with a 73.4% completion rate and was 28 for 36 for 288 yards on Sunday, spreading the ball to nine different receivers.

“I think what’s been different with the quarterback play is now not trying to force things down the field if it’s not there,” he said. “Taking the checkdowns, allowing our runners in space to go get first downs. Hopefully they can break a tackle and you can use that also as essentially a run play if you look at it in that sense.”

One pitfall this season is the Dolphins haven't gotten the ball to Hill and Waddle as much, as teams continue to double-team them. As a result, the two are having their least productive seasons as pros.

Hill had 61 receiving yards and a touchdown on Sunday, giving him TD catches in consecutive games for just the first time this season, while Waddle had two receptions for 37 yards.

That extra attention to the NFL's most productive duo in 2023 has often opened up opportunities for other open receivers.

That has often been Achane, who leads the team in receptions (46) and carries (122). Achane had 73 yards rushing on 17 carries and four catches for 32 yards with a 2-yard TD run on Sunday.

Tight end Jonnu Smith has also emerged as a key piece to the offense over the past two games with nine catches on 12 targets for 146 yards and two touchdowns.

“That’s our brand of football,” Smith said of the sustained drives. “That’s who the Miami Dolphins are offensively.”

McDaniel hopes the efficiency will open up more big plays the rest of the season, as they've been hard to come by. The Dolphins had one 50-yard play in the fourth quarter against Las Vegas.

“Explosives are an important part of winning football,” McDaniel said, “just because it’s hard to execute play-in, play-out at 5 yards a tick. But if a defense wants to commit to playing keep-the-ball-in-front-of-you defense, then you have to execute in the ways we did and have long drives to force them to be a little riskier.”

The Dolphins were 8 of 12 on third down and converted both of their fourth down attempts. During its two-game winning streak, Miami has converted 56% of its third downs.

Many defensive players were critical of their third down defense after allowing the Raiders to convert 57% of them. Gardner Minshew was able to get into a rhythm and keep Las Vegas' offense on the field. He threw two touchdowns on third down.

“We need to improve there,” safety Jevon Holland said.

TE Jonnu Smith. The veteran caught two touchdowns, including a 57-yard TD in the fourth quarter, for a career-high 101 receiving yards on six receptions. Smith is the only Dolphins tight end since the 1970 merger to have 100 or more receiving yards with two TD catches in a game.

CB Cam Smith. Miami's 2023 second-round pick played only eight snaps despite the Dolphins missing starting cornerback Kendall Fuller because of a concussion. Undrafted rookie Storm Duck was Miami's No. 3 cornerback with 36 snaps behind Jalen Ramsey and Kader Kohou. Smith has allowed 12 of 15 catches for 134 yards in coverage this season.

RB Raheem Mostert injured his hip in the first quarter and did not play much the rest of the game.

30 — The Dolphins scored at least 30 points for the first time this season and the most since scoring 30 on Dec. 17, 2023, against the Jets.

500 — Number of Dolphins franchise wins after Sunday, making them the 19th NFL organization with that many victories.

The Dolphins host New England on Sunday. They beat the Patriots without Tagovailoa in Week 5.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Miami Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith (9) catches a pass ahead of Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Decamerion Richardson (25) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Miami Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith (9) scores a touchdown as Las Vegas Raiders safety Isaiah Pola-Mao (20) is late with the tackle during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel speaks at a news conference after an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (1) celebrates a touchdown pass to Miami tight end Jonnu Smith (9) during the second half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

NEW YORK (AP) — When Lisa Kyung Gross first tried to recreate the Korean dishes her grandmother made when she was a child, none of it tasted as good. Things were always slightly off.

“I realized that so often there are little nuances, tricks and detailed tips that are left out of cookbooks and internet videos,” she says. “Often there are sensory-based cues, like ‘When it sounds like this, do this’ or ‘When it feels like this, do this.’”

Kyung Gross craved the face-to-face interaction with an elder expert that improves a dish in subtle ways — like is the onion supposed to be sliced root-to-tip or along the equator? When does the lid go back on a pot?

“When you learn from a person, it’s just so much richer because you get more of the personal and cultural context of the recipe,” says Kyung Gross, the daughter of a Korean immigrant and a Jewish New Yorker.

She was so convinced that everyone should learn dishes from an elder that she went on to found The League of Kitchens in 2014, a network of culinary workshops hosted by immigrant home cooks either online or at the instructor's home.

This fall, the League takes the next step of releasing a cookbook with 75 family recipes representing dishes from Mexico, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ukraine, Greece, Afghanistan, India, Argentina, Japan, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, India and Nepal.

There are instructions for dishes ranging from a Slavic cold borscht, to a Middle Eastern fava bean dish, a Bangladeshi winter omelet to an African peanut butter stew with chicken and vegetables, and a Mexican tomato soup with pasta.

“Different recipes require a different amount of time, but nothing is hard. This is all everyday home cooking,” says Kyung Gross, who has made everything in the book and has gotten raves at home, including from her two girls, 7 and 10.

The recipes in “The League of Kitchens Cookbook” aren't fancy dishes with hard-to-get ingredients. The point was to celebrate the homey, so-called "peasant food" that real people eat every day. The Afghan instructor was stunned that her dish of eggs, tomato, garlic, chili and mint was even going to be codified. “Everyone knows that,” she said. To which Kyung Gross gently replied: “No you don’t unless you’re Afghan.”

The cookbook has meticulously assembled ingredients and instructions, walking readers carefully through each step, repeating amounts, specifying the exact dice, and careful about when pot lids are taken off and replaced. It stands in contrast to so many cookbooks that are heavily condensed.

“There’s a kind of trend right now in cookbooks where the cookbook writer or the chef says, ‘I’m leaving it loose because I want you to trust your instincts and I want you to learn.’ That’s great if you know what you’re doing,” says Kyung Gross.

“It sounds good, but often it’s sort of frustrating for the home cooks. I want our recipes to turn out tasting like our instructor’s food. Then, when you know what it’s supposed to turn out like, then go wild.”

Jacqueline Quirk, who helped edit the book for Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins, used it to connect with her Persian background, making rice tahdig, which leaves the rice crispy at the bottom.

“I think everyone can find something in here that is at least a flavor that resonates with home for them. It really covers a lot of bases in that sense,” Quirk says.

To craft the recipes from the 14 chosen instructors, Kyung Gross would do a Zoom cooking lesson with each of them. They would make the dish and measure everything, even using a ruler if necessary.

“Because I was cooking live with them, I would notice those things like, ‘Did you just turn down the flame? OK, you have to note that,’” she says. “We really wanted to capture in very minor detail all of those measurements.”

Food writer and co-author Rachel Wharton would then watch the videos over and over and write down the recipes, which would then be sent to Kyung Gross to cook again, sending any questions back to the instructor until the final dish got the green light.

Kyung Gross regrets that she never got the chance to learn dishes alongside her grandmother and, in many ways, her cooking network and new cookbook have been created in the elder woman's honor.

"Whenever I’d want to help her in the kitchen, she would always say, ‘Don’t worry about cooking. You should go study. Studying is more important,’” recalls Kyung Gross, who earned a master's degree from Tufts University and a bachelor's from Yale University.

“She really wanted me to have professional opportunities that she didn’t have... And, in her mind, she equated cooking with being stuck in the kitchen.”

The League of Kitchens teaches students to create a dish — and any supporting or associated side dishes or sauces — while also managing to humanize the immigrant experience, face-to-face.

“When you go into someone’s home, and particularly when you're a guest in their home, there is a space for a kind of intimate, interpersonal connection that’s so hard to find otherwise,” says Kyung Gross.

“Every one of our classes starts with people feeling sort of awkward, uncomfortable because they’ve just knocked on a stranger's door and maybe gone to a neighborhood they’ve never been to before," she says. "And at the end, everyone is hugging. People are exchanging phone numbers. They feel like instructors are their new favorite aunt.”

This image released by Harvest shows a recipe for Greek chicken from "The League of Kitchens Cookbook: Brilliant Tips, Secret Methods & Favorite Family Recipes from Around the World" by Lisa Kyung Gross. (Kristin Teig/Harvest via AP)

This cover image released by Harvest shows "The League of Kitchens Cookbook: Brilliant Tips, Secret Methods & Favorite Family Recipes from Around the World" by Lisa Kyung Gross. (Harvest via AP)