Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
