Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night 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 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
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 in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “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.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
