Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete 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.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
