Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed 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.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout 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 first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
