Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved 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 passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle 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 questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
