Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
