The Josh Allen rollercoaster is up and running again for the new NFL season

Having Josh Allen as your quarterback is a bit like owning a high-performance sports car with an odd mechanical flaw that can’t be repaired. Most of the results are amazing – perhaps unprecedented – but there are also times when you wonder if a safer ride would get you farther.

In Buffalo’s 36-31 Sunday win over the Houston Texans, Bills fans saw all sides of the Allenmobile. The quarterback completed 20 of 29 passes for 334 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 130.5. He also ran the ball six times for 23 yards and two more touchdowns, the first a typical romp through the opposing defense.

A two-play sequence perfectly summarized the Allen rollercoaster. There was his desperation heave into the end zone with 1:48 left in the game when the Bills were down 31-30. Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter dropped what should have been an easy game-sealing interception, which gave Allen the second chance he needed to thread the needle on this amazing 34-yard touchdown pass to receiver Joshua Palmer.

The Texans had one more chance to pull the game out, but CJ Stroud fumbled the ball with 16 seconds left on a sack, and that was that. Stroud, by the way, is playing this season for his second NFL contract, which is a strange place for an alleged franchise quarterback to be. Stroud has been up and down in the two full seasons since he was the Offensive Player of the Year in 2023, but he did his level best here. This time, Good Josh Allen – and an inability to capitalize on Bad Josh Allen – sank the opponent.

In fairness, Allen has cut down on his devotion to hero ball and become a much safer player in recent seasons. He committed 37 total turnovers in the 2022 and 2023 seasons combined, and just 18 combined in 2024 and 2025. And those errors often came because the Bills’ shortcomings meant he had to take risks. Once again, this game presented a situation in which Allen had to be Superman for his team to win. We’ve seen that all too often before, and Bills fans have hoped that a more balanced Bills team may take Allen to a Super Bowl for the first time.

The balance isn’t here yet. New defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard is one of the NFL’s more highly regarded assistant coaches, but the Texans put his defense through it with strong performances from Stroud and running back David Montgomery. For a large part of Sunday, this looked a lot like the Same Old Bills we’ve seen before.

Still, both teams showed enough in this game to suggest they will be contenders in the AFC. One thing’s for sure – if these two teams meet again in the postseason, get ready for all kinds of fireworks.

Derrick Henry shows few signs of slowing down in his 30s. Photograph: Andy Lyons/Getty Images

MVP of the week

Derrick Henry, RB, Baltimore Ravens. Henry wasn’t the only Ravens offensive player who showed his stuff in Baltimore’s 41-23 win over the Indianapolis Colts. Lamar Jackson was his usual amazing self, and Zay Flowers outran Indy’s entire defense on his 54-yard touchdown catch. But it was Henry, the Ravens’ 32-year-old running back, who set the tone in the win. Henry carried the ball 24 times for 144 yards and three touchdowns, adding a 19-yard catch for good measure.

It was a historic day for Henry, who passed Marcus Allen on the NFL’s all-time rushing touchdowns list with 125, trailing only Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson.

Not bad for an older guy.

Video of the week

After the Cleveland Browns’ 34-10 embarrassment of a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, in which Deshaun Watson was unforgivably bad for the most part, head coach Todd Monken was asked why he stuck with the quarterback throughout the game. He came up with some excellent word salad.

“We’ll analyze everything that we do,” Monken said of Watson. “It’s not just him, OK? We’re putting this on Deshaun, OK, which is unfair. And whatever there is externally doesn’t matter to me. That doesn’t affect me. That has nothing to do with my decision making … My decision making is what’s best for the Browns now and moving forward.”

It’s pretty clear that the decision to go with Watson over Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel, or anybody else on the roster is more the result of the sunk cost fallacy tied to Watson’s impossible contract, and the Browns’ ownership desperately trying to extract something – anything – from the worst trade in football history. And Monken, who inherited this disaster along with his first NFL head coaching job, has to toe the company line. But whoever is making the Watson decision week after week had better wake up and understand how bad the play on the field is before the locker room is lost for good.

Stat of the week

59. The Chicago Bears are one of the NFL’s foundational franchises, beginning their history as the Decatur Staleys in the old American Professional Football Association, becoming the Chicago Bears when the APFA became the NFL in 1922.

So, whenever the Bears make franchise history, it’s a big deal. The Bears did just that in their 59-37 trampling of the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, scoring their most points ever in a season opener, and participating in the highest-scoring season opener in NFL history, eclipsing the 88 points scored by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints in 2018.

How did these Bears put up all those points? Caleb Williams completed 21 of 29 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns, and he also scored two rushing touchdowns – two of Chicago’s six scores on the ground.

In August, Bears head coach Ben Johnson said that he wanted his 2026 Bears to have the highest-scoring offense ever. At this rate, he may be on to something.

Now, about that defense…

Justin Herbert encountered the same old problems on Sunday. Photograph: Chris Torres/EPA

Elsewhere around the league

-- Over the last 10 seasons, nobody has lost more games than the New York Jets. Their 49-116-0 record and .297 win percentage mark the NFL’s nadir, but perhaps the 2026 Jets are capable of rising from the muck. They certainly looked more sporty in their 23-10 win over the Tennessee Titans. Geno Smith completed 19 of 24 passes for 215 yards, Breece Hall led a rushing attack that put up 152 yards and two touchdowns on 39 carries, and while the Jets were unable to generate an interception in this game after making history in 2025 by failing to record a single pick, said defense did appear spicier, limiting Tennessee to 195 net yards. Not that the Titans are on the verge of competitiveness, but these Jets do have a lot of talent on their roster. Perhaps head coach Aaron Glenn is ready to make the most of it.

-- The Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs face off on Monday Night Football for early control of the AFC West, but the Los Angeles Chargers were supposed to at least challenge those two titans this season. The main reason for the Chargers’ confidence was the brilliant mind of new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel. Justin Herbert has never had an offensive coordinator who could unleash his estimable tools, especially in the deep passing game, and the quarterback’s 65-yard preseason touchdown pass to Quentin Johnston was expected to be the first of many big plays in this new offense. It didn’t quite go that way on Sunday in the Chargers’ 26-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, who have generally been awful for years. Herbert attempted just two passes of 20 or more air yards, completing one. Overall, he looked exactly like the scheme-limited player he has been so far in his Chargers career.

-- Are we ready for a Carson Wentz rebirth? The Minnesota Vikings have experienced some awful (albeit self-inflicted) quarterback luck since they let Sam Darnold sign with the Seattle Seahawks in 2025, and named 2024 first-round pick JJ McCarthy the starter. Head coach Kevin O’Connell’s well-deserved reputation as a quarterback whisperer didn’t extend to McCarthy, who looks like a major bust. And the Vikings’ offseason signing of Kyler Murray threw an interception on his first pass against the Green Bay Packers, before suffering a concussion in the first quarter.

Murray was replaced by Wentz, who went from franchise QB to multi-team journeyman in his career quicker than anybody expected. The Vikings signed Wentz as a backup last season, and did the same this offseason. It’s a good thing they did. At one point in this NFC North battle, the Packers had a 22-10 lead, and then the Wentz-led Vikings scored 29 unanswered points in 17:08 of game clock. Wentz finished the day with 12 completions on 19 attempts for 133 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 123.5. Wentz had a lot of help from his defense, but he also made some bang-on throws, and maybe he’s the unexpected quarterback reclamation project of the 2026 season.

We’ve seen stranger things.

-- It will be a while before we know whether the two most prominent trades of the 2026 offseason will bear fruit. On Sunday morning, ESPN reported that Los Angeles Rams edge-rusher Myles Garrett will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery, and will be out for at least four games. In his Rams debut, a 27-7 blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Garrett was relatively muted, with no sacks and three quarterback pressures in 28 pass-rushing snaps. The Rams have the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Philadelphia Eagles, and Buffalo Bills to deal with over the next four weeks – without Garrett and superlative pass-rusher Jared Verse, who was dealt to Cleveland in the Garrett trade. It’s a blow to a Rams “Dream Team” who were set up for dominance before the games were actually played.

-- The New England Patriots picked up former Eagles receiver AJ Brown this offseason to upgrade a formerly underwhelming group of targets for Drake Maye. But they were only able to see Brown for 31 snaps in their opener against the Seattle Seahawks before he suffered a high ankle sprain that will sideline him for up to six weeks. Brown caught just three passes on four targets for 26 yards in New England’s 13-10 loss, and now the Patriots will need to survive without him for a while. As always, it’s good to remember that football games are not played on paper.