Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
