Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general 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 said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
