Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 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 created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 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 few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt 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 guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
