Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing 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 a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
