Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, 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 lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
