Watson scorches Dolphins for five TD passes in rout
After starting 0-3, Texans roll to fifth consecutive win
HOUSTON — Deshaun Watson matched his career high with five touchdown passes to lead the Houston Texans to their fifth straight victory, 4223 over the Miami Dolphins on Thursday night.
The Texans (5-3) have left behind an 0-3 start with their longest single-season winning streak since reeling off six consecutive victories in 2012.
“You start off 0-3 and outside the whole world is falling, but inside we knew what we had,” Houston’s standout defensive lineman J.J. Watt told NFL Network. “And the thing is these guys, (including) myself, we’ve been through adversity — injuries, stuff like that. So we know what it’s like to be down and out, and we know how to climb back out of it.
“We’re nowhere where we want to be, but five wins in a row feels pretty good.”
Watson threw touchdown passes of 13, 2, 73, 49 and 2 yards, giving him 34 career scoring passes and moving him ahead of Dan Marino (32) for second-most in NFL history after 15 games.
Miami’s Brock Osweiler, who had one tough season in Houston after signing a $72 million contract in 2016, threw for 241 yards with an interception.
Kenyan Drake had a touchdown run and touchdown catch for Miami (4-4), losers of two straight.
Rookie Jordan Thomas caught the first two touchdown passes of his career, Deandre Hopkins had 82 yards receiving and two scores and Will Fuller added 124-yards receiving and a touchdown.
Lamar Miller, who grew up in Miami and spent his first four seasons with the Dolphins, had 133 yards rushing and a touchdown for Houston in his second straight 100-yard game.
Houston led by 8 points when Watson threw a 49-yard TD pass to Hopkins on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 35-20.
Watson found Fuller for a 73-yard touchdown that left Houston up 28-17 late in the third quarter. It was the longest TD pass of Watson’s career and the longest catch of Fuller’s. He has 11 touchdown catches in 11 career games with Watson.
The Dolphins used some third-quarter trickery when Osweiler pitched a lateral to Danny Amendola, who threw a 28-yard TD pass to Drake to cut the lead to 21-17.
None of which pleased Miami coach Adam Gase. “We got to get better fast. I mean, I just got done with the game and I’m fairly irritated right now. So, I’m going to re-evaluate everything this weekend,” Gase said.
Hopkins scored his second TD on a 2-yard catch with about eight minutes left, but his most impressive play of the night came on a nullfied catch.
He reached back and grabbed the ball with one hand and weaved it between his legs in the air before crashing to the ground. But the catch was nullified as Hopkins was called for pass interference.