DJ Moore — Week 1: A Forty-Three-Yard Touchdown in the No-Huddle
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Moore's first game as a Bill was eight targets, five catches, a hundred yards and a touchdown: first and ten at the Houston forty-three, one thirty-nine left in the half, no huddle, Josh Allen deep right for forty-three and a 24–14 lead. He led Buffalo in targets and drew a forty-six-yard pass interference call, and his last two targets, second and third down from the Buffalo eighteen with under six minutes left, both fell incomplete in a 36–31 win over the Texans.
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The drive that put Buffalo up 10 Sunday took three throws, and DJ Moore caught the last two. It began at the Buffalo four with two 10 left in the second quarter, Bills up 17 to 14: 38 deep right to Dalton Kincaid, 15 short middle to Moore, and then first and 10 at the Houston 43, no huddle, Josh Allen deep right to Moore for 43 yards and the touchdown. That throw was worth +4.2 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 13 points of win probability, and it was the largest single play of his day.
The line in his first game as a Bill: eight targets, five catches, a hundred yards, one touchdown, +6.4 expected points on the targets, and a hundred 58 air yards on the eight throws, the most of any receiver on either team. The catches went 18, 15, 43, 17 seven. The 18 came first and 10 from the Buffalo 35 with four 48 left in the half, and the next snap was a deep ball to Moore that Kamari Lassiter was flagged for interfering on, 46 yards, to the Houston one — a no-play, so not in his line, and Allen sneaked in two snaps later. The 17 was third and six from the Buffalo 18 in the third, deep right, out of bounds at the 35, a conversion. The three incompletions: a deep middle throw with 18 seconds left in the half, 50 yards in the air, and then second and 12 and third and 12 from the Buffalo 18 with five 56 five 50 left in the fourth, Bills down 30 to 31, one deep left and one short right, and Buffalo punted.
He was the most-targeted Bill with eight, two ahead of Kincaid and Khalil Shakir, with James Cook at four. Four targets in each half. Kincaid's six went for a hundred 30 yards, so the two of them had 230 of Allen's 334. Three of his eight targets came on third down, and he caught two.
Back in June the preview had Moore on the watchlist: the worst full season of his career, then a trade into Josh Allen's huddle, with the Allen-and-Brady reunion as the bet and the collapsed volume as the risk. The first game answered the volume half — eight targets, the team lead, the most air yards in the building — and put a touchdown on the bet. One week does not restore a career, and two straight incompletions on the drive that could have won it earlier are in the same box score as the hundred yards. Buffalo is home to the Lions on Thursday the seventeenth. The share was there; the question is whether it stays there.
_Data via nflverse._
When DJ Moore's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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