Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed 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 pressure our quarterback 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 compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy 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 indicated he was OK and that his left 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 said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
