Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “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 surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
