Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete 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.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England 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 said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
