Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
