Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out 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 evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “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 went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
