Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again 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 loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”