Bills vs. Texans Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 1

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 1 matchup between the Texans and Bills.

Find a breakdown of every Week 1 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Bills vs. Texans Fantasy Quarterback Preview

Josh Allen

Although Allen's counting stats declined in 2025, he had another excellent season.

He posted career lows in touchdown passes (25) and passing yards per game (215.8), but career highs in completion rate (69.3%) and yards per pass attempt (8.0).

Those rates ranked fourth and fifth in the league.

Although his passing touchdowns dropped from the prior year for the fifth straight season, Allen still posted a 5.4% touchdown rate, his sixth straight season over 5%.

No other quarterback over that span can say the same.

In addition to passing efficiency, Allen added 579 rushing yards.

That was his most rushing yardage since 2022, and his fifth year in a row providing at least 500 yards on the ground.

That dual-purpose usage has had the greatest impact near the end zone.

Allen rushed for 14 touchdowns, his third straight year with at least 12 rushing touchdowns.

He was second in fantasy points scored inside the red zone (148.7).

Allen has ranked first or second among all position players in fantasy points inside the red zone for five consecutive seasons.

If there is one nit to pick with Buffalo and its relationship to Allen's fantasy scoring, it is that they do not throw it more.

We can point to Buffalo's obvious strength along the offensive line, James Cook, Allen's own rushing ability, and a subpar group of pass catchers as the primary reasons for leaning into the run, but anytime Buffalo has been pressed to throw the football, they have been successful.

Allen raises the tide.

Buffalo had a 46.7% success rate on passing plays, even with their 2025 offense, which ranked seventh in the league.

They were still eighth in the NFL in passing plays that gained 10 or more yards (28.8%) and third in passing plays that gained 20 or more yards (11.4%).

In the six regular-season games in which Allen reached 30 pass attempts, he averaged 25.3 standard points per game.

What if Buffalo throws more this season?

The addition of D.J. Moore, Joe Brady‘s elevation to head coach, Pete Carmichael‘s appointment as offensive coordinator, a tougher schedule, and defensive changes could lead Buffalo to air the ball out more in 2026.

There have been whispers about Buffalo throwing more and taking more shots downfield this season.

You did not draft Allen as the first quarterback to sit him in Week 1 because he put up points on anyone, but if you were to highlight a spot where he could underperform his draft cost, this would be it.

Houston was fourth in passing points allowed per attempt last season (0.339), allowing a 59.2% completion rate (3rd), 6.4 yards per attempt (4th), and a 3.6% touchdown rate (6th).

Houston ranked fourth in the league in pressure rate (41.3%) while blitzing only 20.8% of the time (27th).

It took all the way until Week 18, with resting starters, for a quarterback to finish higher than QB12 in a week against them last season.

They are bringing back nearly everyone from last year's defense, with the only real change being adding Reed Blankenship at safety.

Allen has faced Houston in each of the past two seasons, finishing QB17 (14.6 points) against them in 2024 and QB21 (8.1 points) last season.

The Texans were able to keep Allen's rushing in check, allowing 28 and 24 yards on the ground.

Houston has put a lot of pressure on Allen, pressuring him on 42.9% and 44.4% of his dropbacks in those games.

Under pressure in those games, Allen has completed 4 of 22 passes (18.2%) for 116 yards (5.3 Y/A) with 9 sacks.

Houston got him for a career-worst 8 sacks when these teams played a year ago.

C.J. Stroud

Stroud was a mixed bag in 2025.

He completed a career-high 64.5% of his passes while improving his touchdown rate (4.5%) and interception rate (1.9%).

However, he also threw for 217.2 yards per game, the fewest of his career.

Stroud's 42.3% success rate ranked 24th in the league.

After eight QB1 scoring weeks as a rookie in 2023, Stroud has six total QB1 scoring weeks over the past two seasons.

The season ended on an extremely bitter note, with Stroud throwing 4 interceptions in a Divisional Round loss in New England.

One disappointing part of this new offense under Nick Caley was the lack of top-down creativity.

The Texans used pre-snap motion on 49.9% of Stroud's dropbacks (21st) and play action on 24.8% (19th).

The downer is that when Stroud did get to use play action, he averaged 8.5 yards per pass attempt (10th) and 13.1 yards per completion (7th).

When the Texans used motion, Stroud averaged 7.8 Y/A (7th) with 11.7 yards per completion (9th).

Without either, Stroud averaged 6.0 Y/A (30th) and 9.6 yards per completion (31st).

Houston should be much more balanced and on schedule offensively this season, which should open up Caley to push more of those easy buttons, but we still need proof he is willing to do so.

Stroud did not play in this matchup a year ago, but anything from the past against this defense was going to be noisy, since Buffalo has moved on from head coach Sean McDermott and brought in Jim Leonhard to run the defense.

The expectation is that Leonhard will bring an attacking scheme that features more exotic pressure packages than the more passive, big-nickel approach under McDermott.

Leonhard spent the past two seasons with Denver as their defensive backs coach and defensive pass game coordinator.

He didn't call those defensive plays, but Denver ranked third in the NFL in blitz rate (33.4%) in those seasons, compared to Buffalo's 20.8% (25th).

Under McDermott, the Bills were primarily a sub-package defense.

They have had five or more defensive backs on the field for 86.4% of their snaps the past two seasons, third in the league.

Denver was at 69.6% in those seasons, which was 20th.

Buffalo struggled to adapt to the league trend of running more heavy personnel, something we expect Houston to do this season.

The Bills have played sub-packages on a league-high 69% of snaps with two or more tight ends on the field the past two years.

On those plays, they allowed 5.5 yards per play, 29th in the league.

Denver allowed a league-low 4.3 yards per play against multiple tight end sets over the past two years.

Buffalo is not Denver from a personnel standpoint, however.

The Bills lost Matt Milano (620 snaps), Joey Bosa (654 snaps), AJ Epenesa (488 snaps), DaQuan Jones (514 snaps), Taron Johnson (679 snaps), and Tre'Davious White (827 snaps) from last year's defense.

How big were those losses?

With a healthy Ed Oliver back (who only played 108 snaps last year), they added Bradley Chubb, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and Dee Alford as their primary moves this offseason.

Maxwell Hairston (351 snaps last season as a rookie) will be tasked with a larger role.

We will see how this defense comes together early on and whether Caley is willing to expand his play-calling from a year ago, but Stroud remains best served as a floor-based QB2 option as we sort things out.

Bills vs. Texans Fantasy Running Back Preview

More Week 1 Fantasy Breakdowns From The Worksheet: