Josh Allen Taken Down 8 Times as Late Interception Dooms Buffalo in Defeat to Texans
Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“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 was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”