Very little went well 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 interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
