Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
