Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
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 fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
