Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more 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 the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
