Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
