Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered 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 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
