Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
