Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down 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 loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches 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’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
