HOUSTON — There are a couple of maxims regarding wounded animals.
The first asserts how dangerous these creatures are. The other pertains to how quickly predators will sniff them out for the kill.
In the span of five days, we saw Josh Allen thrive and die in desperation.
Allen was reckless Sunday yet willed the Buffalo Bills past the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a heroic and historic six-touchdown performance. Thursday night in NRG Stadium, the Houston Texans slaughtered him.
Allen endured a career-worst eight sacks, took an additional four hits while throwing and terrified Bills fans after a hard tackle that left him writhing on the turf in a gnarly 23-19 mauling.
“We just had the energy all week long,” Houston edge rusher Will Anderson said, “like, ‘Man, we’ve got to go hunt. We’ve got be relentless. No matter what you got going on, no matter how you feeling, bro, there’s no weak links out there on the field. You want a piece of the gazelle? You’ve got to go hunt for the gazelle.’”
Anderson caught his prey 2.5 times, but the nastiest capture occurred on an Allen run late in the first quarter. Anderson’s tackle looked season-ending scary for a couple minutes. Allen slithered his way up through a collapsed pocket and was engulfed from behind by Anderson, who fell on top of the reigning MVP. Allen kicked his feet in agony and rolled over onto his back as Buffalo’s medical staff rushed to surround him on the field.
Allen said he landed on his left shoulder and it “went a little numb on me,” but he didn’t miss a play.
“When they hit the quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s not a healthy way to play or a healthy way to keep our quarterback healthy through the remainder of the season. So that’s just not a good formula right there.”
Nonetheless, Allen kept running and slinging and trying as his teammates — and even referee Adrian Hill, who was carted away with a non-contact injury in the third quarter — dropped all around him.
Right tackle Spencer Brown didn’t finish the game because of his right shoulder. Left tackle Dion Dawkins, receiver Khalil Shakir and cornerback Maxwell Hairston missed plays for concussion evaluations. Linebacker and captain Terrel Bernard suffered a right elbow injury that had him screaming in pain and put him in a sling.
The Bills still had first down at the Texans’ 26-yard line with two timeouts and 41 seconds to go. The Bills got to third-and-1 with one timeout and 28 seconds, but an incomplete pass to Shakir, Dawkins’ false start and fourth-and-6 interception snuffed the comeback bid.
“Whatever situation, whatever circumstance, we’ve got to put our head down and find a way there,” Allen said, “and on the field we didn’t.”
Five days after posting 44 points and using nine targets to push the ball down the field, Allen struggled with Buffalo’s continually eroding roster. Top target Dalton Kincaid missed his second game because of a bad hamstring. Wide receiver Curtis Samuel was unable to play because of neck and elbow injuries, while Mecole Hardman’s calf sent him to injured reserve Wednesday. Even so, McDermott kept sophomore receiver Keon Coleman in the doghouse as a healthy scratch.
Buffalo scored one offensive touchdown, a 45-yard James Cook breakaway, but Matt Prater missed the extra point. The other touchdown was scored on a 97-yard Ray Davis kickoff return.
Buffalo’s meager passing offense netted 183 yards and burped three giveaways. Allen completed 24 of his 34 attempts for 253 yards and no touchdowns with two interceptions by safety Calen Bullock. An illegal blindside block erased a Texans’ pick-six in the second quarter. Shakir also lost a fumble that Bullock punched out.
Shakir finished with eight receptions for 110 yards because of a late explosion. Early in the fourth quarter, he had four catches for 7 yards. The next-busiest wideout was Joshua Palmer with two catches for 21 yards.
The “everybody eats” mantra was being recited by the giddy hyenas on Houston’s defensive front as they picked at Allen’s carcass.
Josh Allen took a career-worst eight sacks from a relentless Houston defense Thursday night. (Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
Allen lost a career-high 70 yards on sacks, the most by a Bills quarterback since 1984, when the New England Patriots dropped Joe Ferguson six times for 75 yards. To find backtracking any worse than that, you’ll need to look up Jack Kemp and Dan Darragh during the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency.
“It’s not fun,” Allen said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better throwing the ball away and living to see another down and letting us play some situational football and pinning them deep. Too many times, I was going backwards, and I’ve got to be better.”
Allen actually escaped most of the early attacks. Houston sacked him once before halftime. Then the onslaught commenced.
Allen took an 18-yard sack early in the third quarter. He scrambled here, there and everywhere until Anderson tracked him down. For Anderson, it felt less like a scene from National Geographic and more like fiction.
“That just goes back to the relentless rush,” Anderson said. “Coach (DeMeco Ryans) really hit it on the head: ‘Man, whatever it takes to get him down. You’re going to miss him one time, but pop back up and get him again.’ It’s just crazy. When coaches say that stuff, you’ll be like, ‘Coach, I don’t even think that’s going to happen!’ But then when it actually happens in real life?”
The deepest sack of Allen’s career was 19 yards against the Minnesota Vikings his rookie year. That same game he famously hurdled linebacker Anthony Barr, but there were no such acrobatics Thursday night.
Six Texans registered at least half a sack. Danielle Hunter had two to keep the team lead over Anderson. They have 11 and 10.5 sacks, respectively. Old friend Tim Settle, with just 14 sacks in 129 career games entering Thursday, collected his first of the season.
“I knew who I was going against,” Settle said. “I knew what areas they were weak in and what areas they struggled in. I felt I did a good job communicating that to the D-line and did a good job game planning for this.”
The Bills are supposed to be hunters, not prey.
They feature one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. They’ve won the AFC East five years in a row, although that streak and a chance to close The Ralph with a playoff game look essentially dead. They went into the season with the shortest odds to win their division and a month into the season were the Lombardi Trophy favorites.
After this gruesome display, the Bills’ fourth loss in seven games, they look simply vulnerable and not dangerous at all.