Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in 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 lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
