Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (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 pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
