Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
