Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, 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. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
