Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
