Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
