Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous 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 healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are 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 wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
