Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing 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, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
