Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle 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 questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
