Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his 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 unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson 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 the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with 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 touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
