Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
