Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle 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 contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly 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 loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
