Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson 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 Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
