Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in 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 backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 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 sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
