Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches 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.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
