Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception 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 long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good 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 tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
