Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
