Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
