Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
