Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
