Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
