Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass 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 good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack 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 frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more 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 loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott 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 topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
