Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
