Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow 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 frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
