Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass 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 throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting 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 late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
