Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
