Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive 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 quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle 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 questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon 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 loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
