Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine 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 ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
