Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt 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 provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
