Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up 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 absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
