Josh Allen Sacked 8 Occasions as Late Pickoff Dooms Bills in Defeat to Texans
Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”