Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off 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,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
