Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult 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. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “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 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not 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 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
