Allen Taken Down 8 Occasions as Late Pickoff Seals Fate of Buffalo in Defeat to Houston
Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off 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 conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns 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,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”