Whenever you think you have teams pegged and know how a given week will unfold, the league reminds you that anything can happen. We were reminded of that right out of the gate in Week 1, where there were several upsets across the league. The most noteworthy of them all came from the Arizona Cardinals.
They were the biggest underdog of the entire Week 1 slate and, despite that, pulled off the outright win over the Chargers on the road. The New York Giants were another team that defied the odds and beat out the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night. Those two upsets weren't on our radar last week, but we did guide you to two of them.
We correctly put the Titans and Rams on upset alert, and they each came out of the opener 0-1, losing to the Jets and 49ers, respectively. We nearly had another in the Houston Texans, but Josh Allen's late-game heroics and C.J. Stroud's fourth-quarter fumble fumbled that opportunity away.
Now, we turn our attention to Week 2, where we've again identified five favorites that could be on upset alert. We kick off Week 2 with a doozy of a matchup where points should come in bunches. Along with two high-octane offenses, the Bills will be opening up the new Highmark Stadium, so there will be plenty of buzz on Thursday night.
While the narrative surrounding both teams centers on their offense, they each allowed at least 30 points on defense in Week 1. Specifically, as it relates to Buffalo's defense and Detroit's chance of pulling off the upset, I'm not sure they fixed their inability to stop the run. While they held David Montgomery (3.0 yards per carry) in check from an efficiency standpoint, the Texans' back still totaled 60 yards on the ground and two touchdowns.
He also caught all three of his targets for 19 yards and another score. Meanwhile, Woddy Marks rushed for 42 yards on just nine carries, and his longest rush went for just 12 yards, so there was success to be had against this unit that'll now try to contain Jahmyr Gibbs. Gibbs is coming off a career-high 34 touches in Week 1 and was electric with each one of them.
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