Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete 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.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated 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 on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased 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 absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
