Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not 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.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
