Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
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 situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
