Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had 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 few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
