Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “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 we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”