Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “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 opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
