Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
