Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
