Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
