Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
