Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “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 remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top 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 pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are 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.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
