Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart 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 indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent 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 earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
