Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
