Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are 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 led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
