Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back 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 short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
