Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 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’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
