Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt 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 opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
