Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
