Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased 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 consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
