Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay 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 statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just 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 wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
