Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield 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 absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
