Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw 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 quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
