Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
