Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle 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 Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
