Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” 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 couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
