Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure 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’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell 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 few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
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 squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
