Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good 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 awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
