Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
