Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England 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 felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
