Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had 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 saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his 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 ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up 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 absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
