Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid 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 the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. 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 step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
