Josh Allen — Week 1: Third and Eleven From the Thirty-Four
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Allen threw for three hundred thirty-four yards and two touchdowns, ran for two more, and won the game on third and eleven at the Houston thirty-four with a minute forty-one left, down 30–31: deep middle to Josh Palmer, thirty-four yards, the end of a ninety-six-yard drive that started at the Buffalo four. Twenty completions on twenty-nine throws plus a failed two-point try, no interceptions, two sacks, in a 36–31 win over the Texans in Houston.
When Josh Allen's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
The full episode, in writing
Third and 11 at the Houston 34, a minute 41 left, Buffalo down 30 to 31. Josh Allen threw deep middle to Josh Palmer, 34 yards, touchdown. The play was worth +4.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 32 points of win probability, the chance of winning from that spot, which went from about 50 percent to about 83. The drive had started at the Buffalo four with three 13 left: seven plays, 96 yards, the biggest of them a 35-yard throw to Dalton Kincaid at the two-minute mark.
The line: 20 completions on 29 throws, 334 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, two sacks, plus the two-point pass to Keon Coleman after the Palmer score that fell incomplete. 32 pass plays came out at +14.5 expected points, and the first half carried most of it — 12 pass plays, a hundred 57 yards net of a sack, +9.8 — with one drive doing most of that work: from the Buffalo four with two 10 left, three throws and 31 seconds, 38 deep right to Kincaid, 15 to DJ Moore, 43 deep right to Moore for a 24 to 14 lead. The other first-half touchdowns were his own legs: a 21-yard scramble around right end with 12 57 left in the second quarter, down seven to three, and a one-yard push up the middle on second and one from the Houston one at four oh two.
The runs cut both ways. Six carries for 23 yards and two touchdowns came out at −2.3 expected points in total, and one play is the reason: fourth and one at the Houston 34 on the opening drive, 11 18 left in the first, scoreless, Allen around left end for −2, −4.2 on its own. The passing game's shape was Kincaid and Moore — six targets for a hundred 38 for a hundred, and every completion of 35 or more went to one of them. Buffalo converted three of nine third downs; two of the three were the 40-yarder to Kincaid and the Palmer touchdown.
The June preview's case on Allen was that the floor is made of legs — passing volume plus sustained rushing as the most stable opportunity structure at the position, with the rushing touchdowns the part least likely to repeat. Sunday delivered both halves at once: two rushing scores, two passing scores, the game-winner through the air. One afternoon is not evidence on repeatability, and the two short-yardage keepers — one a touchdown, one a fourth-down loss — are a fair picture of why the ground scores are the volatile part. Buffalo is home to the Lions on Thursday the seventeenth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Josh Allen's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
Keep going