Josh Allen Taken Down 8 Occasions as Late Pickoff Seals Fate of Buffalo in Loss to Houston
Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need 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 left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”