Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the 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 took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening 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 TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again 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 New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
