Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured 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 Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
