Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
