Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
