Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle 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 questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
