Josh Allen Finally Solves Texans' Defensive Riddle Leading Bills to Impressive Road Win

Flashback to Week 12 of 2025.

In a prime time battle of then-defending division champions, the Houston Texans (minus quarterback C.J. Stroud) hosted the Buffalo Bills. DeMeco Ryans’s club was limited to 261 total yards but backup signal-caller Davis Mills wound up throwing for 153 yards and two touchdowns in his team’s 23-19 win.

As for Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen, it proved to be another frustrating outing against a talented Texans’ defense. He finished the evening completing 24-of-34 passes for 253 yards, and also ran five times for 20 yards. Let’s not bury the lede. Allen was sacked eight times and picked off twice. James Cook ran for 116 yards and scored Buffalo’s lone offensive touchdown of the game.

Josh Allen's lackluster history vs. Texans

Josh Allen sacked 2025 at Houston — IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

For Allen, it was bad business as usual for the talented performer.

Entering Sunday’s season-opening clash with the Texans, the eight-year pro had faced the Texans five times, including a playoff clash in 2019. He connected on just 55.4 percent of his throws (87-of-157) for 980 yards and three touchdowns. He managed to run for 227 yards without a score, but actually did catch a TD pass in the overtime wild card loss at Houston.

Meanwhile, Allen had a combined four turnovers in those five meetings, four of those resulting in losses, and was sacked a total of 15 times—with more than half of those coming in last season’s Thursday night setback.

It was Retribution Sunday for Josh Allen in Houston

Then came yesterday afternoon at Reliant Stadium.

Allen hit on 20-of-29 passes (69.0 percent) for 334 yards, including scores to D.J. Moore (43 yards) and Josh Palmer (34 yards). The latter came with 1:36 to play and gave Joe Brady’s team a 36-31 lead, which proved to be the final score. Allen also rushed for 23 yards and two touchdowns. There was one fumble but no turnover. And the 30-year-old quarterback was sacked only twice in the five-point road victory.

"The players that we got, man ... it's a lot of hard work and trust in each other."

- Josh Allen on how the @BuffaloBills scored so often against a tough Texans D

🎙️ @EvanWashburn pic.twitter.com/59GzrkEVfm
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) September 13, 2026

Bills’ offense was impressive against Texans’ talented defense

In his first game with the Bills, Moore caught five passes for 100 yards and the aforementioned TD. Tight end Dalton Kincaid also came up big with five receptions for 130 yards. All told, Brady’s offense rolled up 409 total yards against the top-ranked defense in the league in 2025.

Obviously, things don’t get any easier with the Detroit Lions coming to town for a Thursday night encounter.

For the Bills, Sunday’s win snapped a six-game losing streak at Houston dating back to 2012. For Allen, he was able to slay a dragon that had brought a lot of heat the last time he played at Reliant Stadium.

DJ MOORE'S FIRST TD AS A BILL 🚨

BUFvsHOU on CBS/Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/CiM8LpAQEc
— NFL (@NFL) September 13, 2026

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