Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill with wrist injury. And a stunning change for offense. And notes

For the second time in three weeks, a midweek injury has sidelined Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill.

Hill, who practiced Thursday, missed Friday’s on-field session with what the team identified as a wrist injury. Mike McDaniel will address his status on Saturday.

Hill, who wasn’t available for comment so far this week, sustained a foot injury in practice a few weeks ago but did not miss a game.

Hill was one of 14 Dolphins on the injury report Friday.

Right tackle Austin Jackson missed practice for the second day in a row because of a knee injury, leaving his status very much in doubt for Monday’s game at the Rams (8:15 p.m., ESPN and CBS 4). Kendall Lamm appears in line to start at right tackle.

Jackson, Hill and receiver Dee Eskridge (personal reasons) were the only Dolphins who missed practice Friday.

But 11 Dolphins were limited: left tackle Terron Armstead (knee), safety Jevon Holland (knee), cornerback Storm Duck (ankle), tight end Julian Hill (shoulder), fullback Alec Ingold (calf), guard Robert Jones (knee), cornerback Kader Kohou (neck), safety Patrick McMorris (calf/remains on injured reserve), linebacker Emmanuel Ogbah (bicep), defensive lineman Zach Sieler (eye) and corneback Cam Smith (knee).

Most of those players, including Sieler, are expected to be available on Monday.

Smith injured his knee during Friday’s practice but said afterward that he’s fine.

▪ Holland, who missed the Buffalo game with a knee injury, said he will be a “game time decision” on Monday.

Asked if he needs medical clearance to play on Monday, Holland said: “It’s a team effort, more so how I feel and their input, what they think.”

Holland said the injury is not similar to the injuries to both knees that he sustained in the Nov. 25 Jets game last season. Holland then missed four games and came back for two before missing the playoff game in Kansas City.

Holland has missed two games due to injuries this season. Have the injuries been frustrating?

“It’s not really frustrating, more so enlightening,” he said Friday. “I’ve had a career where I don’t really deal with injuries. As of late, I’ve been going through little small bumps and bruises here. On the other side of the injury, I’ll be fine.”

Holland is set to be an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Kohou, who sustained a neck injury in the Colts game, said he’s fine and will play Monday. He missed two games because “I had to give it time to calm down.”

BIG PLAYS MISSING

Tua Tagovailoa’s return has breathed life into the offense: Miami has scored 27 points and three touchdowns in each of its past two games.

But one big element of the Dolphins’ offense is still largely missing: the big play.

This season, the Dolphins have only 15 passing plays of 20 yards or longer —- tied with New England for fewest in the league. Last year, they were eighth in the league with 59 such passing plays.

What’s more, Miami has only two passing plays of 40 yards or more, tied for the fourth fewest in the league. Last year, they had 12, which was fourth most.

Tagovailoa’s four-game absence is the primary reason; after all, he completed an 80-yard TD to Hill in the opener against Jacksonville. But that’s not the only reason for the lack of explosive plays in the air.

The Dolphins had a combined three passing plays of 20 or more yards against Arizona and Buffalo, but no passing plays of 40 yards or more.

“It’s not like we haven’t been trying to stretch the ball down the field,” Tagovailoa said this week. “That’s just what the defenses have been showing us and then there are some things on film that look like, ‘man, I could’ve hit this person,’ but sometimes it’s not within our progression with what we talked about with how we would read it.”

So can the Dolphins win and score a lot without the big passing play?

Offensive coordinator Frank Smith insisted on Friday that they can.

Quarterback coach Darrell Bevell explained it this way:

“We love to get explosive plays but we are taking what the defense gives us. We are continuing to search for them. It’s not something we want to force. Both Tyreek and Jaylen [Waddle] have done a good job being selfless players. We’ve seen really good blocking from them.”

The drop in explosive plays also is reflected in the running game.

This season, the Dolphins have just three runs of 20 yards or more, the fifth fewest in the league. Last year, they had 17, which were the third most.

They have only one run of 40 yards or more this season – a 47-yard sprint by De’Von Achane against Arizona.

Last year, they had eight such runs, the most in the league.

Here’s something else notable:

Last season, the Dolphins attempted, on average, four throws a game that traveled at least 20 air yards. Tagovailoa completed 33 of those 68 attempts for 11 TDs and 7 interceptions. The 33 completions were fourth most and the TDs tied for second most on passes of at least 20 air yards.

This season, in his four games (he missed the fourth quarter of the Bills game with a concussion), Tagovailoa has completed 5 of 12 of those 20-plus-air-yard throws for 222 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception.

So the number of deep ball attempts hasn’t dropped considerably. But the number of chunk plays has plunged.

Here’s another pack of Friday Dolphins notes, with news from defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.