Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
