The Buffalo Bills got the better of the Houston Texans in their 2026 NFL regular season opener by taking a 36-31 win.
The contest saw the Bills exercise demons of the past in Houston. finally winning a game at Reliant Stadium for the first time in nearly two decades. It came in a whirlwind, comeback effort too.
Onlookers can learn plenty from such a game.
With that, here are Bills Wire's three things we learned from Week 1:
Will battle for Brady
The Bills came from behind not just once but many times in this one. This Buffalo vs. Houston outing had eight different lead changes, a very high number. That's a sign of team that will battle for their head coach in Joe Brady, who earned it first-career win on Sunday.
Those seeds were planted by former head coach Sean McDermott.
Clearly this roster has the same mindset in 2026 under Brady.
Offensive line can meet a test
A year ago when the Texans beat the Bills, the big problem was the front seven on Houston's defense. Buffalo's offensive line could not handle them that day as quarterback Josh Allen was sacked eight times and hit 12 times in total.
Allen was given much more time to work this time around. That allowed Allen to score four total touchdowns in the win, but kudos to the offensive line for turning it around a year later.
Defense still needs work
The Bills defense saw a few impressive individual efforts in Houston from the likes of defensive tackle Deone Walker and edge defender Greg Rousseau, who had the game-winning strip sack on Houston quarterback CJ Stroud.
As a whole, the defense was not too impressive. The number that tells the whole story is 31, the number of points the Texans still managed to put up. Teams don't often lose with that number.
This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: What we learned from the Bills' Week 1 win over the Texans
