Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said 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 frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 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 perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
