Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up 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 in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
