Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills 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 healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
