Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
