A SECOND CHANCE
After being sidelined by a foot injury, former first-rounder makes the most of opportunity
When Phillip Dorsett talks about the 25-yard touchdown catch he made against the Raiders last week, he sounds almost relieved. As if it was a hurdle he had to cross. “It’s been a long road, but it definitely felt good,” Dorsett said recently. Nearly three years — 35 months to be exact — had passed since the last time he caught a touchdown pass.
And in between those 35 months, a lot had happened. Dorsett got married, had his first child, moved four times and suffered a stress fracture in his foot while training. He missed the entire 2020 season as he rehabbed from the injury and some of 2021.
In 2021, he moved from Seattle to Jacksonville to Seattle again and then to Houston but played in only five games as the foot injury lingered.
He’s finally found a role with the Texans and now he’s trying to make the most of it and take advantage of the things that have come his way.
While Dorsett, 29, hasn’t had many opportunities through the first six games, his role will likely increase. The Texans (1-4-1) face the Titans (4-2) on Sunday and are expected to be without one of their top receivers, Nico Collins, who didn’t practice this week because he’s dealing with a groin injury he suffered in the second half of the Raiders game.
Collins had been on fire recently. He’s been their big-play threat and leads the team with 305 yards receiving and has 18 catches. Replacing Collins, a 6foot-5, 215-pound receiver with one person is nearly impossible. So the Texans are expected to fill his role by a committee of receivers. Dorsett, who is 5-foot-10, 192 pounds, and known for his speed, will be one of those players.
But it will also be an opportunity for Dorsett, a former firstround pick, to show that he should get more playing time, even when Collins does return. Dorsett has three catches for 60 yards and a touchdown in four games this season. He had two catches for 45 yards and a touchdown last week.
“He understands that he has a great opportunity to show that he is an every-down player,” Texans offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton said. “It was important for our offense, for him to make that play down in the red zone, and we expect that he’ll be able to make more plays.”
Dorsett expects to make more plays too. He’s been working for this moment. There was a time when Dorsett wasn’t even sure he’d still be playing.
Love for track and football
Dorsett grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., where he was the youngest of two children to Phillip Dorsett Sr. and Vortez Dorsett.
Phillip Dorsett Sr. jokes that his son was rambunctious kid with a lot of energy. So he put him in Pee Wee football when he was 5 years old to tire him out. But that didn’t work.
So he put him in track and field and basketball, too.
That didn’t work either.
“He was such a busy kid, he just would not stop,” his father says with a laugh. “Even with track and field, you would tell a kid, ‘OK, that’s enough for the day.’ They’d be like, ‘Oh yes!’ Him? No. He’s like, ‘Dad, can I do one more?’ He’s just that way.”
That energy translated well onto the football field and on the track. He was one of the top performers in Florida at both sports and got scholarship offers from a variety of schools across the country.
Dorsett, whose specialties in track were the long jump, 100yard dash and 200-yard dash, played both sports at the University of Miami. His father says had his son chose to pursue track and field full-time, he believes he could have been a professional runner, too.
“I loved both,” the younger Dorsett said. “I still love both. It’s something I’ve been doing my whole life.”
But Dorsett chose to make football his career path. He was drafted 29th overall by the Indianapolis Colts in 2015 where he played for two seasons, before being traded to New England. He signed a one-year deal in Seattle in 2020, where he suffered the foot injury.
Taking two years to heal
Dorsett believes the injury to his foot began during the 2020 offseason. Most facilities were shut down during early portion of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Dorsett would run in the road to stay in shape and keep his conditioning up.
That’s when he began to notice the pain.
That pain would come and go, Dorsett said.
He recalls lacing up his cleats one afternoon and running routes and catching passes at Russell Wilson’s house in San Diego that year.
“The pain wouldn’t go away, and it started getting worse,” Dorsett said. “I was still able to do what I needed to do, but it was a lingering pain.”
Then in training camp, Dorsett was running a simple comeback route when his foot gave out.
The first CT scan revealed that it was a Navicular stress fracture in his foot and doctors initially expected he could return after a few weeks of rest.
But the injury was worse than feared, and further tests determined he needed surgery. It was the same injury that Michael Jordan had in his second season in the NBA. The Navicular bone is the bone in the foot with the least blood supply, which can make it difficult for a fracture to heal. Doctors were concerned. Some players don’t come back from this injury, Dorsett said. It was the toughest thing he’s had to overcome during his football career.
The rehab process was long and arduous. Dorsett couldn’t put any pressure on his foot for three months. He was in a walking boot for three months. He needed to strengthen his calf. He couldn’t run.
“This injury took almost two years to heal,” Dorsett said. “Even when I got back, and got cleared I still had that pain. Trying to figure out different shoes and insoles to relieve me from the pain.”
Even when he returned, the injury still lingered. And there was a time when he didn’t think he’d ever return to full health. He couldn’t walk without a limp.
This offseason was the first time he felt fully healthy from the foot injury.
When asked about those two years coming back from the injury, Dorsett said he was optimistic — and worried. At the same time, while he recovered from the injury, he and his wife were expecting their first child, Payton, who is now three months old.
A rush of emotions came over Dorsett when his wife told him the news that she was pregnant.
He was ecstatic because this was their first time trying. He had always wanted to be a father. But he was also worried that his football career wasn’t where he wanted it to be, and he wanted to be successful for his family.
“There was a little stress about that, but I kept telling him, ‘Look man if you don’t play another down of football, you’ll be OK,’” Phillip Dorsett Sr. said. “You’ll make a way. But he wanted to be special for his wife and new kid that he didn’t know nothing about.”
“But he handled it pretty well.”
Winning a bet on himself
It doesn’t take long for Dorsett to find a picture of his daughter on his phone. He has tons of them, including the one he has as a screen saver on his iPhone.
“She looks just like me, but her personality is more to her momma’s side,” Dorsett says, as he examines the picture. “She’s a light skinned version of me.”
Payton Dorsett, who is three months old now, gave him more purpose. Even before she was born, the thought of her was a source of motivation as he tried to find his way on a team. After he returned to the Seahawks during the 2021 season, Dorsett knew that Seattle was moving in another direction after his injury. So he asked for his release so he could see some more time on the field, betting on himself.
The bet paid off, and year later, he’s with the Texans with a chance to make a bigger impact on Sunday and possibly next Thursday against the Eagles, if Collins continues to miss time.
“Phillip is a veteran in the league,” quarterback Davis Mills said. “He’s going to be in the right spot at the right time, knows defenses well, knows what he needs to do versus different looks to end up in the same spot based on we need from the concept. We can trust him in doing that, and he’s going to have the speed to get there.”
The touchdown catch he made last week was proof of that. It was the result of something Mills and Dorsett had been seeing on film.
The Texans, who were facing third-and-7 from the Raider’ 25yard line, were trailing 17-13 in the third quarter with about three minutes left in the third quarter. The Raiders were playing a Cover-2 defense, and Dorsett and Mills noticed the look Las Vegas was giving.
Dorsett said he ran a bench route in between the spot where the Cover-2 is at its weakest, and Mills delivered a perfect pass that only Dorsett could get. He bobbled it a little but held on. After the touchdown, he threw his hands in the air, and assured to the Las Vegas crowd that it was a completed catch.
“To miss a full year and basically missing another full year being injured, bouncing around a little bit, it takes a toll on anybody,” Dorsett said, “because at the end of the day, it’s not just plug and play when it comes to football. Being in three different cities, I’ve got a wife who was pregnant at the time. You’ve just got to find your way.
“For me, my mentality is that I keep working hard. Don’t let anything phase you. Just keep working, and I’m still here.”