Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the 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 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After 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 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
