Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
