Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
