Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
