Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
