Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought 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 players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
