Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
