Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit 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 sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head 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 smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout 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 opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
