Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ 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 lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
