Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking 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 players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
