Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach 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 give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
