Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
