Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “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 keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
