Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved 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 Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” 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 need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
