Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
