Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
