Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
