Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is 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 improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are 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 led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
