Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against 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.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 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 healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better 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 optimal opportunity.”
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 were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
