Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
