Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed 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 bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit 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. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
