Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
