Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) 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, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just 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’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
