Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 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 created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
