Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just 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 players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
