Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott 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 went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
