Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine 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 myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased 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 wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
