Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop 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 once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
