ORCHARD PARK – If Josh Allen, Joe Brady and the rest of the Buffalo Bills even bothered this week to look back at the film of last year’s 23-19 loss in Houston, it had to have been a cringe-worthy endeavor reliving the beating the Texans‘ defense inflicted.
They treated Allen like a pinata, sacking him eight times for 70 yards in lost yardage, both career highs for the superstar quarterback, and when they weren’t pounding him into the ground, they intercepted two of his passes, the second of which came at the Houston 9-yard-line with 18 seconds left, ending Buffalo’s last-ditch attempt to win the game.
Advertisement
“I can only speak offensively, but we obviously weren’t good enough,” Brady said Wednesday. “Allowed our quarterback to get hit and get touched and anytime Josh is having to get up off the ground, that’s never a good thing. It’s going to be a huge test for us this week, and it’s one our guys are excited for.”
The Texans finished 2025 ranked No. 1 in yards allowed per game at 277.2, and No. 2 in points at 17.4, and the expectation, certainly inside their building, is that they will once again be elite on defense in 2026. Their first chance to start backing up that claim comes Sunday when they host the Bills at Reliant Stadium.
Advertisement
“I think our defense can definitely be one of the best defenses in the league and that’s the goal every year,” Houston head coach and defensive play caller DeMeco Ryans said. “We line up, we talk in the meetings about it. We don’t shy away from it. We expect to go out and play well, but you have to go prove it on Sundays. Our guys are up for any challenge, any given week versus any offense. I expect our defense, again, to be the strength of our team.”
It would be tough to convince the Bills, but that night wasn’t one of the Texans’ best in 2025 outside of the pass rush chaos. They allowed Buffalo to gain 326 yards including 143 on the ground, both the third-highest totals they yielded all year, and the Bills converted on 8 of 21 third- and fourth-down plays, most incredibly a 33-yard hook and lateral play on a fourth-and-27 that kept the Bills’ final drive alive.
The Bills nearly won the game, but everyone forgets about that because of Houston’s eight sacks and three forced turnovers. Not to mention, they also took advantage of the fact that at various points in that game, Buffalo’s three best offensive linemen – tackles Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown and center Connor McGovern – were in the medical tent, and Brown could not finish the game.
Not surprisingly, Houston’s dynamic edge rushing duo of Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter exploited the weakened line and combined for 4.5 of the sacks, 12 tackles, six QB hits, and one massive deflected pass by Anderson on the play before safety Calen Bullocks’s game-ending interception.
Advertisement
“They’re both worth $40 million a year, so I think that’s expensive,” Brown said with a smile of the Texans’ edge rushers. “Yeah, I mean they’re a good duo. There’s a bunch of different duos across the NFL and they’re good as well, but they definitely get highlighted for having a lot of juice down there, and it’s deserving.”
Of course, it isn’t just Anderson and Hunter on this Houston defense. There’s also DT Sheldon Rankins, LBs Henry To’o To’o and Azeez Al-Shaair, CBs Derek Stingley, Kamari Lassiter and Jalen Pitre, and safeties Bullock and Reed Blankenship.
What separates Houston from other ferocious defenses is that it can get relentless pass rush pressure without blitzing. Only one of the eight sacks against Allen last year came with an extra rusher in the mix which was nothing new for the Texans.
In 2025 they blitzed just 21% of the time according to Next Gen Stats, the fifth-lowest rate in the league, yet they still ranked eighth in sack percentage (7.6%) and 10th in QB pressure rate (35.5%). If the Texans put that kind of heat on Allen again with just their front four, it’s going to be difficult for the Bills’ offense to gain traction because of Houston’s defensive strengths at all three levels.
Advertisement
“The best defenses in the league are able to generate pressure with the front and they’ve done an incredible job of building it in terms of the style of play that they want,” Brady said. “That’s how you want a defense to kind of play. It’s as challenging as it gets in terms of what they bring, and there’s still a lot of issues in the back end in terms of finding windows and coverages to be able to work with it. It’s why they’ve had the success that they’ve had.”
But it all starts with Anderson and Hunter and Ryans is well aware of that fact.
“Never seen anything like Will and Danielle, and I’m happy they’re on my side,” Ryans said. “It’s fun when you game plan and you have those two guys, we can put more on those guys because they’re two of the best pass rushers in the league and everybody doesn’t have that luxury.
“We put a lot on those guys and we know teams are game planning for those guys because if you don’t, they’re very disruptive and they can wreck a game. We try to do our best to move those guys around, put them in different positions to be successful, but what a blessing it is to have Will and Danielle on your side. It makes me such a better coach.”
Advertisement
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills face rematch with defense that battered Josh Allen last year
