Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt 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 guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
