Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart 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 opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. 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 scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon 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 first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led 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 were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
