Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (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 down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. 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 on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred 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 in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
