Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
