Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever 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 is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise 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 frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit 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 first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
