Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off 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 end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just 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 need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said 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 frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
