Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed 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 taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
