Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned 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. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss 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 late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
