Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 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 healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more 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 the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
