Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
