Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top 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’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish 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 many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
