Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks 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 Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
