Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest 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.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
