Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
