Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times 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 the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
