Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
