Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the 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 team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
