Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left 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 not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
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 benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “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 went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
