Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was 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 threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
