The Hot Read: Josh Allen doesn’t care about your asterisk

Kamari Lassiter should have caught it. That became the immediate rallying cry for the many naysayers of Josh Allen following the Buffalo Bills’ incredible win over the Houston Texans. In a game that featured eight lead changes, Buffalo took the lead for the final time with just over a minute remaining in regulation when Allen hit Josh Palmer on a frozen rope down the seam for his second touchdown pass and fourth total score of the day. The play before, Allen threw a pass that seemed to come on a miscommunication with Palmer. The veteran receiver turned left, the ball went right, and Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter had a chance to make a play on the ball and potentially end the game. He stumbled, the ball bounced out of his hands, and the Bills’ drive continued. “Lassiter should have caught it.” Well guess what? He didn’t. You know what else Lassiter should have done? Not commit pass interference in the end zone to set up an Allen rushing score. He also shouldn’t have allowed Palmer to get open on the very next play after the dropped interception for the game-winning score. For that to be the sole focus for so many, as if every other quarterback in the NFL doesn’t get those type of lucky moments, is purposely turning a blind eye in order to drive home a preconceived narrative – a narrative that lacks any merit whatsoever. Allen had four total touchdowns and 334 yards passing against the league’s top defense and didn’t turn the ball over once. In the fourth quarter, he went 7-of-12 for 122 yards and the aforementioned touchdown to Palmer. Yet there are still those who will swear to you that Allen isn’t clutch. Since 2020, of the 46 quarterbacks who have played at least 300 snaps, Allen has the highest EPA in the fourth quarter and overtime out of all of them. Additionally, since 2022, of all quarterbacks to play 150 snaps, Allen has the highest EPA per play when trailing, and his 209 impact plays lead the NFL in that time span – no other quarterback has more than 184, per Sumer Sports. It’s only one game, but it was the type of game the Bills are rarely on the right side of. This time, in the first game of the Joe Brady era, Allen had an EPA per play of 0.48, which ranked third among all quarterbacks who played 25 snaps in Week 1 and was second in impact plays in a building that had become his personal hell house over the last two years. So sure. The Bills had a bit of luck on their side in the waning moments of Week 1 – something they’ve had positively none of in the Allen era in the biggest games. Perhaps this is a sign that fortune will finally favor the Bills – that requiem will be replaced by rapture. In 20 weeks time, we’ll know for certain. That’s the cold open – this is the Hot Read. Three and Out Chiefs remain major AFC threat, Broncos remain fraudulent So it turns out that, despite the largely hopeful projections from those picking the Chiefs to miss the playoffs, Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are still pretty good. Kansas City annihilated the Denver Broncos 31-10 to close out Week 1 on Monday night, with Kenneth Walker arriving in a big way. The reigning Super Bowl MVP rushed for 173 yards and put up two touchdowns to help lift the Chiefs’ offense over a Denver defense who struggled to bring down ball carriers all night. Denver missed 19 tackles throughout the course of the game. Per Trevor Sikkema, the Broncos accumulated 248 missed tackle yards, which is the most in a single game in the NextGenStats database. The Chiefs leaned on Walker and rookie Emmett Johnson, as well as the legs of Mahomes to carry an offense whose passing game was largely anemic all night. The Chiefs’ 220 yards rushing were the third-most for an Andy Reid-led team. Far too many were singing ding dong the witch is dead as it pertains to the Chiefs. 2024 was a year that featured unprecedented luck for Kansas City, which was followed by a year of nearly unfathomable bad luck in 2025. 2026 will split the difference. Will the Chiefs win 15 games? Almost certainly not? 11 or 12, though? Why can’t they? In terms of Denver, I didn’t pick them to make the playoffs for a reason – their quarterback is a liability. Bo Nix finished the night 17-of-28 for 131 yards, one touchdown and an interception thrown on his first pass of the season to rookie Mansoor Delane. His 4.68 yards per attempt were 31st in the the league, ahead of only Cam Ward and his 4.38 mark. On top of that, Nix had an average depth of target of 3.85 yards – the lowest of any quarterback in Week 1. Jaylen Waddle was supposed to give Denver an added ability to push the ball downfield – he finished the night with one catch for two yards on three targets. We touched on the Chiefs having terrible luck in 2025, well the Broncos had an unsustainable amount of good luck, winning 12 one-score games – that isn’t going to happen again. Having one of the league’s top defenses and leaning on that unit is all well and good … until that unit has a bad night and you don’t have the quarterback and offense capable of picking up the weight that was put down. The Chargers are still the Chargers The first job of any kind I had covering the NFL began in February, 2020. I was a junior at Slippery Rock University. Every year that I’ve covered the league, I’ve had to listen to a not-small-number of my colleagues go on their respective platforms and say, “I tell ya what, I really like the Chargers this year.” In that span, the Chargers have the same amount of playoff wins as I do. And entering Week 1 of the 2026 season after another offseason of metaphorical eyeball emojis following the hire of Mike McDaniel at offensive coordinator along with Jim Harbaugh all but declaring Justin Herbert to be the one true God of Earth, the Bolts entered their season opener agains the Arizona Cardinals as the heaviest favorites of the week (9.5 point favorites, per FanDuel Sportsbook). How did they back up all the hype? They lost by 12 to a Cardinals team largely projected to be drafting in the top five come April. Justin Herbert finished the week 23rd in EPA per pass, and before you launch out the evergreen offensive line excuse, he was pressured on just 28.6 percent of his dropbacks, which was the third-lowest of any quarterback form Week 1. When it came to late-down passing, Herbert had a success rate of just 11 percent, which ranked 30th in the league, only ahead of Bo Nix and Deshaun Watson. Let’s go ahead and cut to McDaniel’s presser later this week when he’s wearing goofy glasses and mumbling through every question like a 15 year old stoner who just figured out how to make a bong by hollowing out an apple while watching Rick & Morty. The schtick got old in Miami, and it’s going to get old very quickly with the Chargers. T.J. Watt shows change was needed for Steelers For years, if you dared to suggest that the Pittsburgh Steelers should move on from Mike Tomlin, no fewer than three dozen people would hit you with the same phrase: “He would get hired in five minutes if the Steelers fired him.” So many assumed that Mike Tomlin was the straw that stirred the drink for the Steelers, and that he was the lone reason for their three consecutive 10-win seasons from 2023-25. However, the play of T.J. Watt in Week 1 would suggest that Tomlin was holding back the Steelers more than he was pushing them forward. Following what was the worst season of his career, notching just seven sacks, Watt began the 2026 season with arguably the best game of his career. He sacked Cooper Rush twice, had three tackles for loss, and all but put the game away with his first career pick-six. What was so different about this game than any other in the last number of years for Watt? His usage. Watt played in just 38 snaps – something that was unheard of under Tomlin when he was on the field for just about every play every week. Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham made it a point to rotate their edge rushers and keep them fresh, and that strategy paid dividends in Week 1. Not only did the Steelers keep Watt clean, they moved him around the defensive line – something that just didn’t happen under Tomlin and former defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. He played on both the left and right side, registering a sack on each side, and overall, the Steelers’ defense finished the week second in defensive EPA per play. And it’s not just the defense that looked refreshed, the offense pushed the ball downfield. Aaron Rodgers’ 24-of-40 box score won’t blow anyone away, but the Steelers left a lot of meat on the bone in the explosive department. Roman Wilson had a deep touchdown slip out of his hands, and DK Metcalf had multiple drops and an offensive pass interference that negated big yards. Overall, 104 yards on the drops and OPI were kept off the board. Had those plays gone the Steelers way, Rodgers finishes the day with north of 300 yards and two touchdowns. Despite that, his average depth of target was 10.49 – higher than any game he played in 2025 by over a yard and sixth in the league overall. He also led the NFL in deep pass attempts with nine. Pittsburgh is becoming more modern on both sides of the ball – that wasn’t going to happen under Tomlin. One play that changed everything How about Bills defensive tackle Deone Walker? The massive 6-foot-7, 331 pound defensive tackle registered six tackles and two tackles for loss, but the biggest play of the Bills’ win over Houston was Walker’s sack in the game’s final seconds. Conversations need to be had about Deone Walker pic.twitter.com/gEd10OogEE — NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) September 13, 2026 After C.J. Stroud completed an 18-yard pass to Jaylin Noel to give Houston 1st-and-goal at the nine, Walker busted through the middle of the Texans’ offensive line to sack Stroud. Houston had to burn its final timeout, and instead of having two more shots at the end zone from inside the 10 and a timeout in their pocket, they were pushed back to the 18 yard-line with no timeouts. Two plays later, Greg Rousseau had a strip sack that was recovered by Terrell Bernard to seal the game. Buy or sell Buy: Trevor Lawrence After an incredible second half of the 2025 season that saw Trevor Lawrence finish fifth in MVP voting, the former No. 1 overall pick continued where he left off last season. He went 18-of-23 for 245 yards and four touchdowns – nearly as many touchdowns as incompletions with a QBR of 93.4. Yes, it was against the Browns, but Lawrence and the Jaguars did what they were supposed to do against a bad team – they dominated. Sell: Todd Monken lasting more than one season Monken has already announced that Deshaun Watson will start in Week 2, and the fact that we are somehow on Year Four of this is nothing short of remarkable when it comes to this franchise’s incompetence. This is another hopeless season for Browns fans that becomes even more perilous for Monken with every game that Watson starts. Buy: Declan Doyle The Baltimore Ravens’ new offensive coordinator wasted no time leaving his imprint. In his first game calling plays, Baltimore put up 506 yards of offense and 41 points on Lou Anarumo and the Indianapolis Colts defense. Lamar Jackson connected with Zay Flowers five times for 150 yards, while Derrick Henry racked up 144 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. Sell: Packers ability to finish Green Bay has now cumulatively lost its last six games, and they have majored in soiling themselves in the fourth quarter in their last two games. In Week 1 agains the Minnesota Vikings and the wild card round against the Chicago Bears, Green Bay held second half leads of the combined score of 43-13 and found ways to lose both games. A failed fourth-down conversion while up 22-17 in the final minutes of the third quarter is where things began to go south. Instead of taking the field goal and going up by eight, the Vikings took over and scored a touchdown nine plays later to take a 25-22 lead. Green Bay turned the ball over on their next two possessions, both of which led to Vikings touchdowns. After holding a 22-10 lead in the third quarter, the Packers allowed the Vikings to score 29 second-half points to run away with a game that looked lost early on after Kyler Murray was knocked out of the game with a head injury. Buy: Bears offense How about 552 total yards and 59 points for the Chicago Bears in Week 1? You’t think that when a team scores almost 60, the passing stats would be crazy, but it was the run game that truly went off for Chicago, as they totaled 291 rushing yards and six touchdowns on the ground. Ben Johnson said he wanted the Bears to break the all-time scoring record. Well, that’s a terrific way to start that journey. Sell: Bears defense On the flip side, the Bears’ defense looked as bad as I was assuming it would. Chicago made Bryce Young and Jalen Coker look like Steve Young and Jerry Rice, with Young putting up 361 yards and three touchdowns and Coker going for 8-138-2. This is especially concerning, considering Young ranked 31st in success rate among all quarterbacks with at least 100 dropbacks last season. His 361 yards are his second-most in a game in his career, and the three touchdowns tied a career high. When mediocre teams and quarterbacks are doing that to your defense, imagine what the great offenses will do. I can respect the insanity of Ben Johnson just trying to outscore his problems, but the Bears defense will be what keeps them from making the postseason in 2026. Prediction to track Steelers will trade Joey Porter Jr The Steelers’ rising star didn’t partake in training camp, and he didn’t suit up in Week 1 after not securing a long-term extension in Pittsburgh. The Steelers don’t negotiate in-season because they operate like a pizza shop in small town, USA, and it has been reported that they are open to trade offers. A team like the Detroit Lions or Washington Commanders would make a lot of sense here.

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