Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was 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. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
