Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
