Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
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 awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
