Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last 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 statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
