Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, 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 additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
