Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing 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 final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’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 conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening 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 no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
