Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking 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 topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
