Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow 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 landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
