Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay 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’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking 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 wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
