Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
