Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 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 compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
