Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly 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 loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt 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 provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
