Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow 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 landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo 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 make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got 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.”
