Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently 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 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. 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 approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
