“Unstoppable!” - Rich: Why Bills QB Josh Allen is the Shohei Ohtani of the NFL

Rich picked the Buffalo Bills to win the AFC and Josh Allen to win MVP. Two weeks in, he is enjoying two things: not needing emergency surgery, and being right.

"Josh Allen is not from this planet," Rich said the morning after Buffalo opened the new Highmark Stadium by running the Detroit Lions off the field on Thursday Night Football.

Allen had already earned a nickname from Rich, the Mandalorian quarterback, because "he will show you this is the way." Run it, throw it, run over you, run through you. On Thursday he wriggled out of what looked like a sure sack from Aidan Hutchinson, got his right arm free and flipped the ball away. New head coach Joe Brady made sure Allen scored the first touchdown in the new building on the opening drive, and Allen kept going from there.

The stat line was 248 passing yards, three passing touchdowns, 69 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. Allen now has nine combined passing and rushing touchdowns with no turnovers through two games. Rich noted he is the third player to do that through his team's first two games, joining Peyton Manning in 2013 and Patrick Mahomes in 2018. Both went on to win MVP.

Then came the twist. On the TNF postgame, Richard Sherman said a little birdie told him Allen had been shivering in a hot tub before the game while battling the flu. The Michael Jordan comparisons followed immediately. Rich's response: Jordan had his flu game in the NBA Finals, and Allen still needs to do his work in a Super Bowl. "It feels like this could be the year," he said.

Rich had a different comparison in mind, and he knew it might make some people wince. "I don't care. I don't have an appendix," he said.

"The comparison I think for Josh Allen is Shohei Ohtani," Rich said. "Because he's two players in one."

His case is built on the rushing numbers. Allen has 83 career rushing touchdowns, tied with Jim Taylor for 18th in NFL history. He had 14 last season and has four already. Give him 14 again and he reaches 93, which would put him 12th all time, two clear of Hall of Famers Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris, six behind Barry Sanders and seven behind Marshall Faulk. Down the road, that would leave him 13 behind Jim Brown.

"What we are seeing is a unicorn," Rich said.

He was careful not to knock anyone else. Lamar Jackson has two MVPs and can run and throw, and Jalen Hurts has been to two Super Bowls and won one. But Rich argued nobody else runs it as often as Allen while throwing it the way he does. Someone at the desk pointed out that Lamar detractors wrongly see him as strictly a runner, and Rich agreed, noting Jackson threw for 40 touchdowns.

Allen also has back-to-back games with multiple passing and rushing touchdowns for the second time in his career. No other player in NFL history has done it even once.

The only person unhappy about it might be James Cook, who reached for the pylon knowing his quarterback keeps vulturing his touchdowns. Brady said afterward he told Cook to stop reaching and promised to get him another chance. Cook finished with 135 rushing yards and a touchdown, and the desk made the case that he never gets his due among the league's best backs, pointing to 3,752 yards and 30 touchdowns over the last three seasons. Dalton Kincaid, meanwhile, became the first Bills player with 200 receiving yards through two games since Stefon Diggs four years ago.

The Lions got the worst of it. Buffalo became the first team since the 2020 Packers to score 35 points and gain 400 yards in each of its first two games, and "the Bills sent them back to Detroit in a fetal position," Rich said.

The defense is a concern, and the crew debated it. The Bills are also the third team ever to start 2-0 while allowing 30 points in both games, joining the 2000 Rams and 1991 Bills. Rich's answer came from Warren Sapp: defense gives you a chance, offense wins you championships.

Allen, for his part, took in the national anthem at the new stadium and called his job "the coolest thing in the world." What is missing is the big one, and everyone at the desk knew it. "This is all that's missing," Rich said, "and Bills fans know it."