Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult 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 passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
