Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions 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 commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy 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 “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
