Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
