Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. 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 frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
