Houston Lights Up Bengals

HOUSTON — Warren Moon, with a little help from his friends, got everyone off his back Sunday.

Harassed by pass rushers, the press and Houston fans, Moon picked himself up and threw a pair of touchdown passes in the Oilers’ 44-27 drubbing of the defenseless Cincinnati Bengals.

“What the guys had been doing is looking out for other people’s responsibilities,” Moon said. “Today, the team and I focused only on our own responsibilities and the results were a lot different.

“We put double the time this week on everybody’s assignment because that’s where our problems were.”

Moon, sacked an NFL record-tying 12 times by Dallas earlier this season, was not dumped once by the Bengals. He threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Drew Hill and a 24-yarder to Mike McCloskey.

Houston (2-5) also got a big contribution from its defense, which intercepted three passes and recovered two fumbles.

The Oilers jumped to a 17-3 lead in the second quarter on Larry Moriarty’s 6-yard touchdown run, Tony Zendejas’ 34-yard field goal and Mike Rozier’s 3-yard scoring run.

The Bengals (2-5) rallied to within 17-13 at the half on field goals of 47 and 22 by Jim Breech and Boomer Esiason’s 20-yard touchdown pass to rookie wide receiver Eddie Brown.

Houston regained the momentum in the third quarter when safety Bo Eason intercepted a pass and returned it 55 yards to the Cincinnati 30, setting up a one-yard touchdown by Stan Edwards.

Zendejas added a 28-yard field goal, and Mike Stensrud set up Moon’s 34-yard strike to Hill by intercepting another Esiason pass.

Richard Byrd recovered an Esiason fumble to set up Zendejas’ 32-yard field goal with 7:14 left and Chris Dressel’s fumble recovery preceded McCloskey’s touchdown with 6:21 to play.