Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 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, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach 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 in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
