Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated 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 frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
