Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle 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 Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
