Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
