Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. 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 other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
