Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't 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 sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
