Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created 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 had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England 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 noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
