Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred 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 loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
