Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm 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 TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
