Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. 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 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
