Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
