Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach 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 keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
