Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “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.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout 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 New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
