Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” 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 encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
