Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish 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 contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
