Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
