Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
