Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted 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 stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
