Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
