Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in 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 another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
