HOUSTON -- What toe injury?

A.J. Green has looked completely healthy again the last two weeks, pushing off both feet to make some of toughest contested, jumping catches and tip-toe sideline landings of his career.

He has looked like a Pro Bowl receiver who's just reaching midseason form.

Actually, forget midseason form. On Sunday, he played his best game in a Cincinnati Bengals uniform.

So it really wasn't all that surprising after the 22-13 win over the Houston Texans that he said he felt as good as he has in the last two months.

"The toe is 100 percent," Green said, referencing the toe he originally tweaked during the season opener. "Last week was good, the couple games before that was all right, but now, I have no pain."

It's the last part of his quote that is the most telling: no pain.

Green had been bothered by his right big toe from the moment he landed on it awkwardly in the first quarter of the opener at Baltimore. Although he finished that game, he was unable to make it past six plays the following week. He played again a week after that, and then three weeks later the pain became so unbearable that during the stretching portion of a practice, he stopped, took his shoe off and slammed it down in frustration before getting carted off the field.

Whatever forced the discomfort that time caused Green to miss practices and games the following three weeks. When he returned against Jacksonville in a limited outing three games ago, he looked like a shell of his old self. It still seemed he was getting back into form and trying hard to get his conditioning up again.

In the last two games, he has looked like a completely different player.

"It's felt good just to get back in the groove of things," Green said.

Against the Texans, he caught a career-high 12 passes for 121 yards. He was one reception shy of Carl Pickens' franchise record set in 1998.

"For him to have a performance like he did, that's what we expect from him," quarterback Andy Dalton said. "He's so talented we feel like he matches up with almost anybody so it was big for him to get going."

Green said he didn't face as much press coverage in this game as he has in others this season, including last week's at New Orleans. He felt like he constantly had a cornerback on top of him, or a safety helping up top in that game. Against the Texans, though, cornerbacks routinely backed up and gave him a pre-snap cushion that led to numerous slants and short-yardage receptions he was able to exploit and turn into bigger gains.

In the last two weeks, Green has 18 catches for 248 yards and a touchdown. In the two games before that, his first back from the injury, he caught six passes for 67 yards.

"The fact of the matter is, he's a dominant football player and a great one," veteran offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth said. "We need him to be our J.J. Watt. We need him to dominate people and let them know about it. Not necessarily with talk, but let them know about it with confidence and with that swagger. 'If you want to cover me, then try.' We need him to be that way."