Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 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 tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
