Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“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 going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week 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 one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
