Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow 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 many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting 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 late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
