Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, 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 early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
