Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “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 tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t 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 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
