Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”