Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred 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 result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not 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 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
