Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout 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 first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
