Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
