Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish 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 not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us 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 disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
