Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
