Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
