Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
