Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe 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.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
