Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back 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 Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. 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 pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell 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 need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver 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 loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
