Josh Allen’s Nine-Score Start Matches Two MVP Seasons

Josh Allen accounted for five touchdowns as Buffalo beat Detroit 41-31 in the first regular-season game at new Highmark Stadium. He threw three scores and ran for two on Thursday, Sept. 17, and the Bills are 2-0. The Lions are 1-1.

Through two weeks he has nine total touchdowns and zero turnovers. Only Peyton Manning in 2013 and Patrick Mahomes in 2018 had done that to open a season, and both won MVP. Allen did his share while taking IVs before kickoff, in a building that had never hosted a regular-season snap, against a Lions team that had just crawled out of a 21-0 hole.

The Same 21-0 Hole, One Week Later

On Sept. 13 in Detroit, the Lions led New Orleans 21-0 in the third quarter and still needed overtime to survive. The Saints tied it at 24-24, missed a 62-yard field goal at the gun, then failed a two-point try after an overtime touchdown. Final: 31-30. Dan Campbell, Detroit’s coach, said he would take the win and get on to Buffalo.

Four days later the hole switched sides. Buffalo scored touchdowns on its first four possessions. Allen finished the first regular-season drive in the new house himself, a 10-play, 85-yard march that ended on a 1-yard run. Josh Palmer, open deep after two Lions collided near DJ Moore, caught the next one from 43 yards. Dawson Knox scored from a yard. Dalton Kincaid scored from 16. At halftime it was 27-10, and the script from Ford Field had been flipped.

Detroit did climb. The Lions pulled within 10 twice while the game was still live. Amon-Ra St. Brown, who finished with nine catches for 142 yards and two touchdowns, scored again with 1:42 left. Buffalo recovered the onside kick. James Cook’s 1-yard run at 2:50 had already made it a two-score game, and the night ended 41-31 instead of in another miracle.

THE TWO 21-0 HOLES

1. Sept. 13, 2026: Detroit leads New Orleans 21-0 in the third quarter, blows the lead, and wins 31-30 in overtime when a two-point pass falls incomplete.
2. Sept. 17, 2026: Buffalo leads Detroit 21-0 after its first three scoring drives, takes a 27-10 halftime edge, and holds on 41-31 at Highmark Stadium.

Campbell’s team showed the same late-game passing volume it needed against the Saints. It never controlled a snap the way it had for one half in Week 1. Jared Goff still threw for 327 yards and four scores. The deficit he was throwing at had been dug before his offense found a rhythm.

Nine Touchdowns and Two MVP Ghosts

Allen’s Thursday line was 20 of 31 for 248 yards and three touchdown passes, plus 14 carries for 69 yards and two more scores, 317 combined yards and no interceptions. He also fumbled once, recovered by Buffalo, which is why the two-game turnover count stays at zero.

Four days earlier in Houston he had gone 20 of 29 for 334 yards and two passing touchdowns, then added 23 rushing yards and two rushing scores in a 36-31 win. Add the nights: five passing touchdowns, four rushing touchdowns, nine in all. Buffalo has scored at a 38.5-point clip. ESPN’s research desk put him in a club of three.

Josh Allen is the third player all-time with 9+ Pass/Rush TD and no turnovers over his team's first two games of a season.

The previous two both went on to win MVP 👀 pic.twitter.com/QNhX4uvaFK

— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) September 18, 2026

Manning’s 2013 openers were all through the air. Mahomes in 2018 threw 10 touchdowns in two games. Allen is the first of the three to mix in four rushing scores. He already owned the weird dual-threat bins. Thursday was his fourth career game with at least three passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns; Kordell Stewart is the only other player with more than one, and he has two. It was also Allen’s 10th game with at least two passing and two rushing touchdowns. Steve Young is next with four.

THE ONLY 9-TD, 0-TURNOVER STARTS

A Pro Football Hall of Fame study published after the Houston game had already placed him 17th all-time in total touchdowns. Four scores that afternoon, including a 34-yard winner to Palmer, moved him to 305 for his career, past Johnny Unitas’s 303, with 222 passing, 81 rushing touchdowns after the Houston win, and two receiving. Thursday added three passing scores and two rushing scores. He sits at 310 total, 225 through the air, 83 on the ground in the regular season.

Allen Was Sick and Still Scored Five

Richard Sherman, the Prime Video analyst and former All-Pro corner, put the pregame scene on the postgame set. He told Allen he had been shivering in a hot tub, taking IVs, and refusing to be admitted. Sherman called it a flu game of Allen’s own. Allen did not confirm the diagnosis. He also did not deny it.

I’m just trying to do my job and help my team win football games.

Josh Allen, Bills quarterback, on Prime’s Thursday Night Football postgame show

Joe Brady, in his first season as Buffalo’s head coach, watched it from the sideline instead of a booth and said the view was more amazing, not less. He is the first Bills head coach to start 2-0. He talked about emptying the tank because the quarterback had already emptied his.

He put the team on his back in a lot of those situations. He literally gave everything he had out there.

Joe Brady, Bills head coach, postgame press conference

Allen later said he caught himself taking it in during the anthem, called the job the coolest in the world, and credited a left tackle who made the night easier. About 1,000 fans were still on the rail after the horn, hanging on the Prime booth interview with Allen and Dion Dawkins. The building had done the ceremony first: light-up bracelets, fireworks, two anthems, red end zones with BILLS in white block letters, a charging buffalo at midfield.

THE NEW HOUSE ON OPENING NIGHT

• The bill: Construction ran past $2.1 billion after an original $1.4 billion estimate, the largest build in Western New York history.
• The bowl: Listed capacity at the 60,108-capacity Highmark Stadium sits about 11,500 seats below the old yard across the street, which held 71,608.
• The crowd: The announced sellout was 60,644 for the Lions game, with a 360-degree canopy covering more than 60 percent of the seats.
• The field: Natural grass over heating coils, plus a roof-sensor snow-melt system built for Buffalo winters, hosted its first regular-season snaps.

Forty-one points are the third-most by any team in a regular-season stadium debut, behind Dallas with 44 at Texas Stadium in 1971 and Miami with 42 at Joe Robbie Stadium in 1987. Brady said the atmosphere was the game Buffalo deserved. The offense treated the night like a clinic more than a show, which is what he said he wanted.

What Happened After DJ Moore Went Down?

Moore, acquired from the Chicago Bears in the offseason for a 2026 second-round pick (Chicago also sent a 2026 fifth), had just posted five catches for 100 yards and a touchdown in Houston. On Thursday he finished with zero catches. Late in the second quarter he dove for a pass in the end zone, grabbed at his shoulder and collarbone, and walked off with trainers. The Bills listed a shoulder injury and a stinger, then ruled him out at halftime. Brady gave no update after the game.

Palmer, Kincaid, and Knox absorbed the targets. Palmer now has two catches, 77 yards, and two touchdowns this season, the Houston winner and the 43-yard strike. Kincaid led Buffalo with seven receptions for 95 yards. Knox’s 1-yard score was the short one in the four-possession burst. Khalil Shakir and Keon Coleman stayed on the field too. The machine did not downshift when the new No. 1 receiver left.

Buffalo still went 5-for-5 in the red zone and 9-of-12 on third down. It punted twice all night. It outgained Detroit 446-355. Ed Oliver, the starting defensive lineman, had already been ruled out after hurting his hip in pregame warmups, which left four healthy linemen up front. The offense covered for both absences by scoring on schedule, then answering whenever Goff cut the lead to 10.

Goff Reaches 40,000 Yards in a Loss

Goff entered the night with 39,828 career passing yards, 172 short of 40,000. He threw for 327. That is 40,155, in his 153rd career game. Matthew Stafford, the quarterback Detroit traded to get him, got there in 147 games. Matt Ryan needed 151. Drew Brees needed 152. Kirk Cousins and Dan Marino also hit the mark in game 153.

The Lions’ official log has him 26 of 38 with 327 yards and four touchdowns, no picks, four sacks for 38 yards lost, and a 130.0 rating. St. Brown did the heavy lifting. Jahmyr Gibbs was held to 52 yards on 16 carries and added six catches for 61 yards and a score. Detroit played without right tackle Blake Miller (knee) and left guard Christian Mahogany (hip). A snap sailed over Goff’s head on one of the first two series. Avonte Maddox hurt his right foot in a three-player collision in the end zone and did not return.

THURSDAY NIGHT BOX, COMPRESSED

• Yardage: Buffalo 446, Detroit 355.
• Red zone: Bills 5-for-5, with touchdowns on the first four possessions.
• Goff’s night: 327 yards, 4 touchdowns, 4 sacks, 40,155 for his career.
• Allen’s night: 248 passing, 69 rushing, 5 touchdowns, 0 interceptions.

Goff’s volume was real. It was also the second half of a game Buffalo had already put away, then refused to give back. Last week’s 21-0 lead had been a trap. This week’s 21-0 deficit was a wall. Same number, different team holding it, and only one of those nights ended with a win.

Cook, Rousseau and a Night That Would Not End

Cook carried 21 times for 135 yards and punched in the 1-yard score that ended the argument with 2:50 left. Allen’s legs were the changeup, 69 yards on 14 carries, including two touchdowns, but Cook was the drive-starter once Detroit started selling out to keep Allen in the pocket. Buffalo never needed a fourth-quarter panic throw. It needed first downs, and Cook kept handing them over.

Greg Rousseau, who had two sacks and two forced fumbles in Houston, added two sacks and a forced fumble against Goff. That is four sacks and three forced fumbles in two games. The Bills still allowed 31 points for a second straight week, 62 through two games, and 71 if you count the 30 the Saints hung on Detroit as the other side of this pairing’s early math. Brady’s defense is not a shutdown unit. It is a takeaway unit that has to live with shootouts while Allen outscores the problem.

The Lions have now allowed 71 points in two games, 30 to New Orleans and 41 to Buffalo. They have also scored 62. That is a 31-point average at both ends and a 1-1 record that looks respectable until you stack the first-quarter tapes. Campbell’s group can still throw with anyone. It has not yet started a game like a team that just made the NFC’s top tier a habit.

Buffalo Has Heard This Praise in September Before

The two-game sample is the one Manning and Mahomes turned into MVP winters. It is also the sample Buffalo has lived in for years, loud Septembers and louder questions in January. The sharpest reading of Thursday is not that the league should hand over the award. It is that Allen, even after IVs, even after Moore left, even in a stadium still learning its own noise, is producing the same start the last two men in this club turned into hardware.

The January file is still open. Regular-season nights of this size have been the pregame show in Buffalo before. The objection that follows a 5-touchdown box score is older than Highmark’s grass: this quarterback looks unbeatable in the fall and has not yet closed the thing that would make the building’s first season feel finished. Two weeks do not settle that. They do put him on a list that had only two names, both of whom won the MVP, and they do it in a house that had never seen a regular-season touchdown until he ran one in himself.

Buffalo hosts the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept. 27. Detroit hosts the New York Jets that same afternoon. About 1,000 people were still in the new seats when the interviews ended, which is one way to open a $2.1 billion yard: leave them there, staring at a quarterback who had no business playing and scored five anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Was Josh Allen’s Line in the Houston Opener?

On Sept. 13 at Houston he completed 20 of 29 passes for 334 yards and two touchdowns, ran six times for 23 yards and two scores, and won 36-31 on Palmer’s 34-yard catch late. That four-touchdown night plus Thursday’s five is the nine-score, zero-turnover start.

How Many People Were in Highmark Stadium on Thursday?

The announced crowd was 60,644, a sellout above the listed 60,108 capacity, with fans in light-up bracelets for the pregame show. The old stadium across the street held 71,608 and is set for demolition in 2027.

Which Quarterbacks Hit 40,000 Yards Faster Than Jared Goff?

Matthew Stafford got there in 147 games, Matt Ryan in 151, and Drew Brees in 152. Goff, Kirk Cousins, and Dan Marino all reached 40,000 in their 153rd games. Goff’s 327 yards on Thursday pushed him from 39,828 to 40,155.

Who Designed the New Highmark Stadium and What Did It Replace?

Populous designed the bowl, including a perforated metal exterior meant to bleed wind and a canopy over more than 60 percent of the seats. It sits next to the 1973-era Highmark, which the Bills used until this season, and it is the first new NFL stadium to open since Allegiant Stadium and SoFi Stadium in 2020.

When Do the Bills and Lions Play Again?

Buffalo stays home on Sept. 27 against the Chargers. Detroit is also home that afternoon, against the Jets, after a short week that started with a 31-30 overtime escape and ended in a 41-31 loss on the road.