Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed 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 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver 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 defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
