Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage 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 down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe 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.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
