Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
