Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent 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 opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
