Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
