Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity 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 bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” 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 good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack 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 many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott 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 guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
