Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 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 the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete 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 get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
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 squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “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 opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
