Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed 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.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “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 provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
