Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
