Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to 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 another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
