Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more 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 delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling 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 best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
