Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game 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 ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved 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 players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
