Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off 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 end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought 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 went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
