Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred 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 drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
