Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen 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 zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB 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 result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
