Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. 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.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt 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 players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
