Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver 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 the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
