Josh Allen Taken Down Eight Times as Late Pickoff Seals Fate of Bills in Defeat to Houston
Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “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 went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”