Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it 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 figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching 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 wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
