Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good 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 difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
