Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. 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.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
