Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy 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 improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
