This is how maxed out we’ve become as a society. About 27 years ago, we sat around a television and watched as someone quested to become a millionaire on a game show hosted by Regis Philbin. When the first person to ever win—John Carpenter—correctly identified Richard Nixon as the inaugural president to appear on the television sketch comedy Laugh-In as the answer to the final question, it felt like a seminal societal moment. A millionaire. Overnight. A non-insignificant part of me thought school might be canceled the next day.
Now, we get to watch C.J. Stroud attempt to 15x that total—at least—over the course of 17 regular-season games in 2026, the first of which was a raucous, meth-infused roller coaster that saw the Bills defeat Stroud’s Texans 36–31 but, perhaps in the meantime, instill (slightly?) more confidence in Houston’s quarterback than we’ve had in years.
