Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
