Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “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 unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
