Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston 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 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant 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 the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
