Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute 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 saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit 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 compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
