Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult 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 two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
