Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
