Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, 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 hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
