Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from 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 picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
