Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach 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 keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
