Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive 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 Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed 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.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. 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 sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred 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 in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
