Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
