Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance 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 couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm 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 a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” 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 isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow 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 fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
