Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, 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 early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
